Cleveland Museum of Art

Ganesha

Date

c. 1070

Medium

bronze

Culture

South India, Medieval period, Chola dynasty(10th-13th century)

Department

Indian and Southeast Asian Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Ganesha, the god of wealth and abundance, is an auspicious and revered Hindu deity. He removes obstacles and protects his worshipers. Numerous myths explain how Ganesha became an elephant-man composite, but the most popular version relates the story of how he was decapitated by his enraged father, Shiva, and restored to life through the intervention of his mother, Parvati. Shiva agreed to revive him with the head of the first creature encountered: an elephant. Ganesha's strength—his profound spiritual wisdom—contrasts with his weakness for sweets, as indicated by his pudginess and the sweet modaka he carries. In Ganesha, opposing forces exist in perfect harmony. Ganesha pulls his own broken tusk in one hand, which he used as a pen to write the epic Mahabharata .

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