Ganapati: Song of the Self (Suny Series, Religious Studies) (Suny Series in Religious Studies)

Ganapati is the Hindu Lord of Beginnings, the Keeper of the Threshold, the Remover of Obstacles, Master of the Mind, Son of Siva, Elephant-headed, plump, and loveable. This book offers a wide range of information about Ganapati gathered from such diverse sources as hymns, poems, myths, shrines, practices, and theologies. It considers Ganapati's complexity: his transcendence of sectarian and territorial limits, his delayed but dramatic development into the religious pantheon, his paradoxical mythology, and his physical manifestation, an elephant's head on a human body. Ganapati: Song of the Self fosters an understanding from within a tradition. It presents a positive interpretation of the material and encourages an inner quest for spiritual truth.