Greetings dear chubby elephant,
I thought of staying at home today as it is your special day but you probably wanted to tell me Karma Yoga is very important Thanks a lot for sending me to work today.
I feel guilty about serving just fruits [branded ones my Lord, the sort with fancy stickers on them] this morning .
You cannot escape my attempts at making modak though .If not today, you will get them some other day. Thought Id give you a fair warning.
Just last year, around the same time, my beloved brothers who love to make up theories called you a foreigner- God. Their sense of timing is always good.
You are a Prasanna vadhana and you smiled as you must do always .You must have flapped your pink translucent ears in amusement. You must have shaken your head too gently. Indigenous or foreign, elephants are adorable.
Baby elephants practically melt the helpless hearts of mothers who once might have possessed a few milligrams of this thing called intellect [what' s that?] in their poor heads.You are one of a kind. I cannot think of any human or Devata, for that matter , who would look adorable for those hopelessly sentimental folks who like to adore.At the same time, you can also be the repository of gnana for those who seek Gnana. Talking about looks, I want to say this too. The last time I saw a full moon I wondered why he hid his fair face so frequently behind grey clouds.It turns out he is still feeling ashamed about the fact that he laughed at your appearance once. Everytime he is reminded of this incident, he feels shy and he is forced to hide himself behind a cloud.
A lesson for all those who judge a book by its cover. I have done that many times and that many times you have reminded me it' s a wrong thing to do. But it took that many lessons as I am not a very good student.
Regarding poor Chandra, he wasn't a mother so couldn't appreciate your chubby countenance ,your round belly, the ears that flap gently , the single tusk , the fold in your chubby wrists, and more than anything else, your raised right palm, the abhaya hasta, that drives away all fear. You being you , forgave him and gave him a chance to appreciate your beauty. You love to play games and that is what makes you even more endearing. Poor Agastya didn't bargain for that when you toppled his kamandalu containing Kaveri , you put an end to river disputes then. In one shot, a valuable lesson was taught to proud Kaveri as well as the sage. A young woman called Avvai prayed to you , when she heard she was engaged to be married. The lady wanted to become an old woman as she wanted to attain Gnana and she wanted to get out of samsara and marriagehood!. No shopping expeditions, no appointments with herbal beauty clinics. We can only admire such people, dear chubby elephant. We look for the nearest reflective surface everytime someone hands some sacred ash that should be worn on our foreheads.
Vanity feels good for now, but I know it can't last long and before it's too late, please place your baby elephant trunk on the arrogant head . This, you know is an authorisation. Regarding Avvai,you must have heard her plea instantly as you do with many mundane requests and you must have flapped your ears in glee.
One more person seeking Gnana!With your help, she reached the Kailash that people like me can only imagine (poorly) you lifted her up with your trunk and dropped her there at Kailash before her " male co-workers" reached there. That is the power of your "green channel."
Sor padham kadhandha
Duriya mei Gnana
Athpudham ninRa
KaRapaga kalirae!
Avvai sings.
Beyond words and verses
In the duriya state
Dwells the elephant,
The Kalpaka tree.
To remember another episode,that island- born author wanted to write his magnum opus and he thought he needed a scribe. You were just waiting for this opportunity and materialised right before him. Your eyes must have glinted in amusement as you laid a pre-condition to him. "Dictate fast, Oh Rishi , else, I stop taking notes! See that there is no pause in the narration!" A lesser man would have given up but who was he after all? Another form of your beloved uncle, the ultimate mayavi.
He responds by saying that you should not be a mere note-taker who doesn't understand the meaning of what he writes. He challenges you that you should not write anything without knowing the deeper meaning in the verses.
When I read stuff like "The articulation of spaces in progression that ultimately transcends reality [ oh, yeah?] and built spaces that are meant to be a paradigm shift that reflects the deepest thought processes of ..."[ you may understand what this means, but I don't] ,I wince.
May be this may only mean someone writes things he doesn't want anyone to understand. That is intellectual stuff and I can see you smiling just now.
But your uncle and you are a different team altogether. He makes up knotty verses and looks at the scribe through the corner of his eyes and the scribe shakes his beautiful elephant head and writes it down after understanding it. It was a game watched by all the beings, human and those who were above that level with bated breadth. Uncle and nephew wanted to play a game and the world is now richer by a Maha tale.
I am sure a collective sigh of relief must have been heard in the all the Worlds when the magnum opus was dictated fully and when the scribe finished writing it down. After all who can take a suspense? Not even the Devatas.
But for you, we might have never got the magnum opus.
And that ultimate sacrifice , I am
talking about the fact that you broke your tusk in a second and
continued writing when you needed another writing tool. For the love of literature or for the love of your Uncle? Whatever, that was heard in all the Worlds and a collective gasp was heard too. Eka dantha, who else but you could have done something like that?
Your uncle heard that and he gasped too but a challenge is a challenge and he continued narrating. Did you do that on purpose to rattle him? No, you certainly didn't and you wanted to show us that a magnum opus cannot be written without pain and sacrifice. Some say you got that Danth broken in a war. Whichever way that broken danth is a symbol of sacrifice and determination.
Yours is one form that anyone can make ,and you would gladly fill the form with your energy if the request was made in earnest. My mothers, even after this many years of experience in making goodies, make a conical form with rice dough and pray to you that the goodies turn out well. You don't mind that at all and you are always glad to help out. The goodies turn out very well indeed.
They then request you to kindly leave the form so that they can use the dough without wasting it [If food was wasted, your mother Annapoorani would be upset and who would want to upset her?]. You probably shake your beautiful head in the affirmative, smile and leave the form. You look beautiful in any sketched image as well, however abstract it may be or however elaborate it may be. You look wonderful in the page of this website, in the little symbol I draw sometimes on papers , in the many different ways people depict you. The ancestors of the people who say you are a foreigner , it seems , once went around breaking your images. The ancestors of all the irrationalists of today responded by installing your images everywhere. Yes, everywhere.
You sit under trees, by the side of rivers , just about everywhere in my home state that so loves foreign Gods! Your true home is the humble hearts of devotees. Men and women visit your temples in hordes and many of them ask you to unite them with their sweethearts. They have grown up on the stories about you and the couples are reminded of the prank you played to unite Subramanya and VaLLi. You wore your elephant form, scared the poor woman and she ran straight in to your waiting brother's arms. Incidentally he was wearing the form of an old man at that time.
Some team work ! Some boyish pranks you both played then! If every Skanda had a Poorvaja like you he wouldn't have to make any amateurish plans to win his sweetheart. But is it only romance and nothing else? A good Guru would do anything to unite the pining part with the whole. If that includes scaring the part in to running straight in to the waiting whole's arms, it would be done too. Some time, in the next million years or so, you would do the same to this miniscule part of the one and only complete whole.
Mudakaraatha Modakam Sada Vimukti Saadhakam
Kalaadharaavatamsakam Vilasiloka Rakshakam
Anaaya Kaika Naayakam Vinasitebha Daityakam
Nataasubhasu Naashakam Namaami Tham Vinaayakam.
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written by narensomu, 2008-09-05 23:09:57
This should be true of all sublime revelations, especially having to do with man's quest for God or even a divine spiritual guide. It does not matter to me if, of the two mighty sons of Iswara, it is Ganesa, who is the elder one, or it is Muruga who is married. It suffices that God is available to me in both adorable forms.
Thanks for teh words of wisdom and the Gita press info.
Yes, it doesn't matter how knowledge was revealed to whom , where and in what manner.
To South Indians ,Ganesha is the Poorvaja and up North he is younger than Skanda.Skanda is a bachelor there
and a family man in TN. It is the tatva that matters.
Skanda may fill the need for Vatsalya worship in a Shaivaite.
He is Shiva in another form and his spear is Shakthi herself.
Ganesha is a SadA bAla rupi who melts even the hardest hearts.
He is Gnana personified and Tamil tradition says his form resembles the Tamil "Om".
Thousand years ago,he ate the modaks given to him by the child Nambiyandar Nambi, who helped King Rajaraja find Devaram scripts in Tanjore.
He may be watching over the shrine also our small efforts in preserving what should be preserved.
He united Avvai with the whole , but he sits like the simple person that he is in every street corner in TN, accepts simple offerings and I suspect, talks to kids who talk to him.
Regards
ns
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written by narensomu, 2008-09-05 22:56:33
That is a beautiful picture.Fits the Kapila description .
Yes, Gaja karNa can hear very well
but these loud" music " is not really meant for him I guess. 
The Lokamanya' vision is being misused in places-On one level ,it's nice to see people of diffrent castes celebrating the festival together but it isn't nice to see the performance of dance groups that are hired to perform for the occasion.I dont know how it is now but this was the case with some Chennai neighborhoods a few years ago.
The dance groups have nothing to do with religion or spirituality.
Prasanna Vadana has a lot of good humorand patience in store but it shouldn't be tested I feel.
Regards
ns
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written by P. Desikan, 2008-09-04 16:34:17
As it appears that the scribe revelation was received in North India, if you buy a copy of Ganesha Purana or Mudgala Purana from , say Gita Press Gorakhpur, the book may contain this picture that you look for, along with others.
All the best. Partha.
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written by P. Desikan, 2008-09-04 15:36:52
It is mentioned that out of the several manuscripts of Mahabharata that were chosen to finalize the modern edition, the south Indian editions almost invariably did not contain the story of Vyasa's dictation of the epic to Sri Ganesa. To a person like me, who loves this extraordinary form of the infinite and who worships him everyday, it should be of no consequence, when exactly this form was revealed to some mortal, nor when a particular attribute or story got tagged on to this form by a mortal, to whom it was revealed, or where. This should be true of all sublime revelations, especially having to do with man's quest for God or even a divine spiritual guide. It does not matter to me if, of the two mighty sons of Iswara, it is Ganesa, who is the elder one, or it is Muruga who is married. It suffices that God is available to me in both adorable forms.
Warm regards. Partha.
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written by Dwai, 2008-09-04 10:41:28
Same Ganesha, another version. Community Pujas are very good for social interaction as well as collective action. The Lokamanya was a visionary of course, that's why he introduced the concept.
I only wish they'd not play the music so loud in the public pujas these days.
God is omnipresent, omniscient and omnipresent. He can hear everything rather well (especially Lord Ganesha, with his larger than life ears...)
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written by narensomu, 2008-09-04 09:48:32
Yes,Ganapati Bappa Moriya ! Maharashtra must be alive with the festival now.
When Tilak first popularised this group puja concept, it helped kindle latent nationalism.
Now, there is a bit of commercialisation everywhere-but those who worship with fervor do so despite everything.
Please see Wikipedia pages on Vinayak Chaturthi-they add a punchline on environmental pollution-felt that could have been there on a related link rather than the main page on the issue.Some slants are subtle.
Regards
ns
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written by narensomu, 2008-09-04 09:39:52
Thank you for the explanation of the concept-That applies to all our knowledge systems as you rightly point out.
But unfortunately MH has been always widely misquoted and I have a lot of doubts that need clarifications .
Vyas couldn't ahve asked for a better scribe and Ganesa couldn't have found a better person he could break his Danth for.
I was looking for a picture where Ganesh sits in fornt of Vyas taking notes as a studious scribe, couldnt find it though. May be, when I find time should try my very limited sketching skills doing that concept.
Thanks to this Rishi-divine child duo,We are infinitely richer.
We are indeed blessed.
Regards
ns
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written by P. Desikan, 2008-09-03 12:56:14
I shall chew and slowly digest the Vyasa-Vinayaka Inc. story. When Ganesa challenged Vyasa to dictate without interruption, did Vyasa challenge him to write without stopping? No. Ganesa was asked to understand every passage that he wrote. A good mother takes her time to let the child get full value out of the nourishment she provides. It is alright for the child to demand that it be fed in one continuous stream. The mother would like the child to taste, to chew, to devour properly, even to burp or otherwise give indication of happy absorption/digestion, to go to sleep in peace after the meal!
It is the greatness of Sri Vinayaka that he could comprehend and write out the epic as fast as it was dictated, so that he was even obliged to quickly find a second writing tool, by breaking one of his tusks. But such was not Vyasa's intention. If Brahma had provided him any other, run-of-the-mill scribe, he would still have given the same condition, that the scribe take time to understand a passage before putting it down and thus moving away from it to the next.
We must all take it that this is Maharshi Vyasa's dictum as well to any reader of any portion of his priceless epic throughout Time. Do understand it, before putting it down and passing on.
Warm regards. Partha.
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This refers to your comments under the heading Kapila-Ganesha.
Ganesha must be happy with those among the modern chaturthi revellers, who do not know of any other way to celebrate it, but still adore his murti.
I know your mind revolts against those unbelievers who still form part of the chaturthi crowds for making money or to fan gross emotions.
Regards.Partha.