Ganesha showcased in India’s Ellora Caves
THE god Ganesha is well represented in various forms in the Unesco world heritage site of Ellora Caves in Maharashtra’s Aurangabad district in western India.
Ellora, whose artwork dates from the fifth to 10th centuries, showcases one of most important gods in Hinduism – either dancing among yakshas (nature spirits) or imitating his father Shiva’s dancing form, Nataraja.
Located about 30 km from the city of Aurangabad, Ellora is a complex of 34 caves comprising artworks from Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.
However, Ganesha cannot be seen as an independent deity in the early carvings in the caves and is represented as a part of a group of deities.
“In the early caves, we find Ganesha around Shiva’s dancing form, Nataraja, imitating him. This underlines his position as a yaksha and Shiv gana [attendant] among other ganas. This was the representation of Ganesha in the sixth century,” Saili Palande-Datar, an Indologist, said.
In the caves dating to the sixth or seventh century, Ganesha is seen with saptamatrikas or mother goddesses (Brahmani, Vaishnavi, Shivaduti or Indrani, Narsimhi, Chamunda, Kaumari and Varshi) and not as an independent figure, she added.
Ganesha is represented in a carving in cave 25, popularly known as Rameshwar cave, which showcases an event in the life of Shiva and Parvati.
“The presence of Ganesha in this particular carving of Shiva can be connected to the name ‘Sakshi Vinayak’, which translates as a witnesser of many events,” Palande-Datar said.
Near the sanctum sanctorum of Kailasa, one finds the sculpture of Soma Skanda, depicting the family of Shiva, but Ganesha is absent in the family portrait. However, the deity can be found in the larger display of the Shaiva pantheon in one of the shrines on the circumambulatory path of Shaiva Panchayatana.
At the entrance of cave 16 – again carved by the Rashtrakuta dynasty – a large Ganesha is found.
Ganesha is the presiding deity of Muladhar Chakra in the 1,000-petal lotus symbolising Kundalini Jagran.
“In the Nandi Mandap’s ceiling (cave 16), we find one of the oldest paintings of Ganesha,” Palande-Datar said.
The carvings of Ganesha in Ellora are notable for the absence of his vehicle mushak or mouse, according to expert and guide Madhusudhan Patil.
“Ganesha became an independent deity in the carvings from the later period. But he is represented without mushak. This is because the Ganesh Purana, which has the reference of mushak for the first time, was written in the later period,” Patil said.
The biggest sculpture of Ganesha is in cave 17, where he is carved with a bowl of laddoos [traditional sweet balls] in his hand, Patil added.
Ellora expert Yogesh Joshi underlines the importance of Ganesha in Ellora.
“In the early medieval period, when the Yadava dynasty ruled around Ellora with Devgiri fort as its base, many independent idols of Ganesha came up in Ellora and the area around the fort,” he said.