Thirty-two forms of Ganesha

Thirty-two forms of Ganesha are mentioned frequently in devotional literature related to the Hindu god Ganesha (Ganapati). The Ganesha-centric scripture Mudgala Purana is the first to list them.

Detailed descriptions are included in the Shivanidhi portion of the 19th-century Kannada Sritattvanidhi. There are also sculptural representations of these thirty-two forms in the temples at Nanjangud and Chāmarājanagar (both in Mysore district, Karnataka), done about the same time as the paintings were done and also at the direction of the same monarch. Each of the thirty-two illustrations is accompanied by a short Sanskrit meditation verse (dhyānaśloka), written in Kannada script. The meditation verses list the attributes of each form. The text says that these meditation forms are from the Mudgala Purana.

In his review of how the iconographic forms of Ganapati shown in the Sritattvanidhi compare with those known from other sources, Martin-Dubost notes that the Sritattvanidhi is a recent text from South India, and while it includes many of Ganesha's forms that were known at that time in that area it does not describe earlier two-armed forms that existed from the 4th century, nor those with fourteen and twenty arms that appeared in Central India in the 9th and 10th centuries.

Ramachandra Rao says that:

The first sixteen of the forms of Gaṇapati shown [in the Sritattvanidhi] are more popularly worshipped under the name shoḍaśa-gaṇapati. Among them, the thirteenth, viz. Mahāgaṇapati, is especially widely worshipped. There is a tāntrik sect which is devoted to this form. Śakti-gaṇapati, Ucchishṭa-gaṇapati and Lakshmī-gaṇapati are also tāntrik forms, which receive worship which is cultic and esoteric. Heraṃba-gaṇapati is popular in Nepāl.

karasthakadalīcūta | panasekṣucamodakaṁ | bālasūryanibhaṁ vaṁde ||
devaṁ bālagaṇādhipaṁ || 1 || raktavarṇaḥ

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