Why does ganesha have an elephant head

Thus it indicates to surrender one's pride and attain humility. Lord Ganesha represents the pure consciousness - the Atman - which enables these four attributes to function in us. The hand waving an axe is a symbol of the retrenchment of all desires, bearers of pain and suffering. The axe is also to prod man to the path of righteousness and truth. The second hand holds a whip, symbol of the force that ties the devout person to the eternal beatitude of God.

Lord Ganesha is usually portrayed wearing red and yellow clothes. Yellow symbolizes purity, peace, auspiciousness, sense control, and truthfulness. Red symbolizes the activity in the world. Thus an individual should perform all duties in the world, with purity, peace, and truthfulness. These are held together by the cosmic energy kundalini symbolized by the huge snake around him. The snake that runs round his waist represents energy in all forms.

The big belly signifies that a person should face all pleasant and unpleasant experiences during his life span with patience and calmness. They cut off its head and took it to Shiva. The head merged seamlessly into the torso of the boy and a moment later the little eyes flickered open. Shiva raised him up and embraced him. In you, my son, shall be the power to remove every obstacle in the path of man, and in you shall lie the wisdom of the ages. Shiva then turned to Parvati. Parvati smiled but her eyes still crackled.

He is the commander of the heavenly armies. She led him away and Shiva followed with a rueful smile on his lips. Click here to join our channel indianexpress and stay updated with the latest headlines. Home Parenting Learning Short story for kids: How Ganesha got his elephant head Short story for kids: How Ganesha got his elephant head Ganesh Chaturthi Parvati threw him a smouldering look and turned away.

Updated: September 3, am. The Indian Express website has been rated GREEN for its credibility and trustworthiness by Newsguard, a global service that rates news sources for their journalistic standards. So she creates a human figure to guard the house. This figure is called Ganesha. She orders him to guard the house and let no one in during her bath. When Shiva comes home, Ganesha does not realize that this is Lord Shiva and does not let him in. Lord Shiva, in anger, cuts his head off with his Thrishulam.

After Lord Shiva cut off Ganesha's head, he realized his mistake and then asks Vishnu and Brahma to get the head of the first animal that they encounter. They encounter an elephant and cut off its head and give it to Lord Shiva.

Then, Shankara fixes the head onto the body and gives birth to Ganesha, the elephant-headed god. The evidence is here. Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams?

Learn more. Why does Lord Ganesha have an elephant head? Ask Question. Asked 7 years, 4 months ago. Active 1 year, 4 months ago. Viewed 28k times. Improve this question. Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. Improve this answer. Alien Mr. Alien 6, 19 19 gold badges 49 49 silver badges 89 89 bronze badges. Though this answer cite Wikipedia as reference but As per this meta , Wikipedia is not considered reliable source when it itself doesn't cite sources.

So, Mentioning the chapter of Shivapurana that contain this story would be useful to have this answer being sourced. Also, Lord Hayagreeva had an animal head too — The Preserver. There are several Puranic stories about Lord Ganesha and his elephant head. These stories are: Once Parvati, just for fun, prepared an image of a child with an elephant's head, out of the unguents smeared over her body and threw it into the river Ganga. Hence Lord Ganesha is known as Dvaimatura, 'one who has two mothers'; Parvati prepared the image of a child out of the scurf from her body, endowed him with life and ordered him to stand guard before her house.

His captivating splendour made Parvati react angrily and curse him, resulting in the elephant head; and Ganesha was originally Krishna himself in the human form. He gives the following possible meanings of the elephant head: 'Gana' means category. In effect, it means the origin of the whole creation, God Himself; A common Sanskrit word to denote elephant is 'Gaja'.

The elephant head is thus purely symbolical and points to this truth; A factor we observe in creation is its two-fold manifestation as the microcosm Suksmanda and macrocosm Brahmanda. Kedarnath 4, 12 12 gold badges 33 33 silver badges 67 67 bronze badges. Pradip Gangopadhyay Pradip Gangopadhyay Please 1 cite your sources, and 2 fix your post's formatting.

The Preserver The Preserver 1 1 silver badge 13 13 bronze badges. Welcome to Hinduism Stack Exchange! Blogs are not considered reliable source here.