Dakshina Chitra is a famous heritage centre about 30 miles from Chennai. It is located on the

way to Mahabalipuram. We visited this place a few years back and discovered that It is a unique

cross cultural living museum of art, architecture, lifestyles, crafts and performing arts of South

India. We were truly impressed by the work of one artisan glassblower. His creations of various

forms of Ganapati were so beautiful that I had to exhibit them for a bigger audience. Dr.

Ramesh Mundra photographed these exquisite statues for this slide show.

The Artist at Work at Dakshina Chitra

See our photographs of the exquisite glass blown statues of Ganapati

THE PRODUCTION

Ganapati playing the Dholak

Ramesh Mundra and Avinash Patwardhan

photographing these delicate glass statues

Ganapati playing the trumpet

Ganapati playing the flute

Ganapati playing the dholak

Ganapati as Nataraj

Ganapati driving a mouse carriage – “mushak-vaahan”

Ganapati taking a ride in a gondola

Ganapati playing the cymbals

Ganapati playing the violin

Ganapati on a bell

Ganapati standing on a lotus flower

“Ashtakamal”

Krishna playing flute with a cow

GANAPATI AN ANALYSIS

Hindu gods with their numerous limbs, partial animal forms, and unusual presentations, were created

by the sages of the Vedic and Puranic period with a certain symbolic significance. Ganapati a

mythological deity is a classic example of this concept. The books that tell us the most about

Ganapati are the Mudgala Purana, and the Chandogya Upanishad. In Sanskrit, everything that our

mind can grasp or our senses can perceive and all that can be counted or comprehended is called

“gana”.

“Ganapati” is thus the Lord of all “ganas”, or of all creation.

Hindus also believe that all of creation started with Ganapati’s intervention. He exists in all

manifestations and unites man to God. Ganapati stands for one of the basic concepts of Hindu

mythological symbolism, the principle, that man is the image of God. “Tat Tvam Asi”. He is our visible

icon of the Divine. Hence we always bow to Ganapati first and worship him at the beginning of every

enterprise. As a protector his image is always kept at the entrance of every house and temple.

He has become such a common household deity, that the seemingly ludicrous amalgam of elephant

head and a human body somehow manages to appear natural. He participates in our lives in a variety

of ways and personalities as seen in the slides that follow. Ganapati has charm, mystery, popularity,

power, political importance plus everything you can think of. One can start from Ganapati and work

from there in an unbroken line to almost any aspect of Indian culture.