Ganesh – Studies of an Asian God

This book displays state of the art scholarship on the mythology literature iconography and practice surrounding Ganesa. No single scholar could take on the range of traditions texts languages and practices that are represented here. It is a case of strength through diversities of scholarly in original sources.

Paub B. Court right Emory University

I liked the wide-range of information presented about Ganesa from a variety of Asian countries. The depth of detail it makes available the transitions of texts otherwise not available the data on actual rituals and the data it gives on Tantrism. The book will be useful to those who want to explore a single theme that has run through South Southeast and East Asia. It is especially significant for the insight it provides into Tantric practices in Tibet and Japan.

Dennis Hudson. Smith College

This book examines the complete Ganesh for the first time. Here is the God in his multiple forms from the different geographical areas in Asia. Particularly important are chapters that deal with his Buddhist and Tantric forms. The controversial question of his origins is also thoroughly discussed.

“It provides a great deal of original and unpublished material which will be of much interest to scholars in the field. It will be an indispensable reference work on the subject.”

Pratataditya Pal Senior Curator. Los Angeles Country Museum of Art Robert L. Brown is Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of California. Los Angeles and Adjunct Curator of the Pacific Asia Museum.

It all started in 1953. A. D. H. Bivar, then at the Christ Church, Oxford, showed me a coin of Hermaeus when I was working on my dissertation on the Indo-Greeks at London. It was unusual. On the reverse of the coin the deity that should have been Zeus appeared to have an elephant’s face; the trunk was clear. Both of us became curious, and we checked various private and public collections for other specimens. We did not find any and accepted it as a unique piece. But we were reluctant to publish it then, t firstly because we wanted to wait for more specimens to be found, and secondly because we could not convince ourselves of reasons for Hermaeus to issue such a coin. The coin was acquired by the British Museum, and the matter rested there.

But I did not forget about it. When P Bernard sent me photographs _of some coins of Agathocles found in his excavations at Ai Khanum in Afghanistan bearing the queer depictions of two Indian deities, now identified as Vasudeva and Sankarsana, I remembered again the Hermaeus coin. I went through the relevant literature, and I thought of giving the coin’s image the benefit of the doubt. I thought if such an early king as Agathocles among the Greeks of Bactria and India could experiment with the depiction of Indian divinities, and Heliodorus, an emissary of Antialcidas of Taxila to Vidisa, was bold enough to declare himself a Bhagavat, why could not the last of the Indo-Greek kings, Hermaeus, think of paying respects to the local elephant-deity of the mountains nearby the city of Kapisa. But I was afraid to provoke Ganesa as well as his votaries and the scholarship on him. Nevertheless, since this unique coin of the British Museum was not known to many, I felt justified in bringing it to the notice of those who were not numismatists and who would not visit the British Museum collection of coins.

In 1973 I read a paper at the Paris conference of the International Congress of Orientalists that for the first time dealt with this coin publicly. To reduce the shock, I also discussed the coins of Agathocles showing Vasudeva and Sankarsana as identified and published independently by both Jean Filliozat and myself. The response was mixed as expected, and some Sanskritists plainly refused to accept the identification of the image as a therianthropomorphic figure with an elephant head. I published a brief note on the coin and continued discussing it in the States, finally organizing a panel at the Washington, D.C., session of the Association of Asian Studies in 1984 to deal with Ganesa afresh in the wider perspective of various academic disciplines and cultural areas. We decided later to publish the papers presented at the conference, supplementing the panel papers with additional articles. But all this could not have happened if Bob Brown had not taken upon himself the task of editing the manuscripts and seeing the book through the press. I also take this opportunity to thank the publishers for their patience and production. I only hope our Ganesa receives it kindly.