Monier-Williams, Monier: Religious thought and Life in India (Band 1): Vedism, Brahmanism, and Hinduism (London, 1883)

Worship of Ganesa and Su-brahmanya. 217

Altogether, the god Ganesa represents a being who is a
curious mixture of divine and demoniacal, benevolent and
malevolent, intellectual and animal propensities, all of which
are typified by the somewhat grotesque and bizarre assem-
blage of symbols noticeable in his image.

Notably, too, his worship is combined with that of every
other god. For all sects unite in claiming him as their own.
It is on this account that his shrines and images are generally
found in association with those of other deities, and are
usually to be seen in the approaches or vestibules of large
temples. Often, however, they stand alone, and are then to
be found outside villages, under trees, or in cross-ways, or
indeed in any kind of locality, but always smeared with red
paint in token of good-luck and auspiciousness. Solitary
temples of large size dedicated to Ganesa are rare. The
largest I saw anywhere in India was at Wa-i, between Poona
and Mahabalesvar. It contained a colossal image of the god,
and in this temple I noticed a singularly simple and easy
method of doing him honour. A man entered with a small
vessel of holy water from the neighbouring river. He re-
peated no prayers, but with a diminutive spoon poured a little
of the water two or three times on the lower extremities of
the huge image and then retired. Another large Ganesa
temple which I visited is on the summit of the rock of
Trichinopoly, Ganesa being there called Ujjhi Puliyar1.

In point of fact Ganesa has in the present day few ex-
clusive adorers; that is to say, there are few sectarians who
trust to him alone for salvation, though all propitiate him
J for success. In former times the Ganesa or Ganapatya sect,
as it was called (see p. 59), was divided into six sub-sects who
worshipped six dirteirehtfforms of the god, named respectively
(according to the Sankara-vijaya) Maha-Ganapati, Haridra-

1 There is also a shrine to Su-brahmanya on this celebrated rock, and
I noticed as a peculiarity that the image of a peacock was represented
looking into Ganesa's shrine, not into that of his brother.