Hi Friends,
As I explained in this blog about Krishna Janmashtami, festival season has begun in India and the next up was Ganesha Chaturthi or Ganesha Festival.
Here I am sharing little bit of details about the festival we are celebrating right now and also few pictures of the idol of Lord Ganesha as I move along in this blog.
Ganesha Festival is one of the prominent festival in India especially in central and south India but it is celebrated for almost a month in the state of Maharashtra.
Here I am sharing the 2 different Ganeshas one from our home and another one from our tenant's home.
First up, I will go with our Ganesha as I am also sharing few pics of my kids celebrating the festival.
The above share pic is what the idol of Lord Ganesha and let me give a brief history about Lord Ganesha.
Goddess Parvati and Lord Eshwara are the prominent deities in Hindu mythology and Lord Ganesha is the son of these 2 as per puranas.
Lord Ganesha is said to be given life by Goddess Parvati and Lord Ganesha was formed by turmeric powder by Goddess Parvati and made it lively and considered him to be her son.
Then how did Ganesha got the head of an Elephant?
There is a story behind that, it seems Goddess Parvati was taking bath and asked her son Lord Ganesha to stand at the door and stop anyone from entering the house.
When Lord Shiva (or Eshwara) came home and asked Lord Ganesha to give way to go inside the house, he didn't allow Lord Shiva as per his mother's orders.
Lord Shiva seems to have gotten angry and beheaded lord Ganesha, when Goddess Parvati came out from bath and saw beheaded Ganesha, she pleaded Lord Shiva to bring back life into God Ganesha.
Realizing his mistake, Lord Shiva brought the head of an Elephant and fixed that to Lord Ganesha and gave him back the life and that is how Lord Ganesha is with head of an elephant.
Kids like the festivals as there will be lots of sweets and food items made of sweet and more than that, Ganesha festival also gives us a chance to fire some crackers and kids will love to fire the some of those flower pots, chakkars and other fireworks like rockets and all.
Here we can see my younger son standing infront of Lord Ganesha and posing for a photo.
And here goes both of my kids with even elder one joining his brother.
Both are naughty and likes to fire crackers.
Lord Ganesha idol will be kept in house for different duration in different locations.
In most of the public Ganeshas (where Ganesha idol will be kept on the street with all decorations), they will keep it for a day, or 3 days or 5 days, but in the state of Maharashtra, Ganesha idol will be worshiped for almost a month and then with all puja, it will be immersed in water as per the ritual.
Here I am sharing the Ganesha idol worshiped by our tenants and we can see in the background the decoration of flowers, lights and different cloth materials.
During Ganesha festival, we will also worship Goddess Lakshmi who is considered as the goddess of money and we can see 2 idols of Goddess Lakshmi in the above photo.
It will be a hours together process to bring life into these idols from what we see above. It starts with a water pot made of metals and a coconut used to create head part of Goddess Lakshmi and body will be built using a stick and then Saree, the Indian common wear for women is worn to Goddess Lakshmi and then remaining decoration and flowering will be carried out as shown above.
Ganesha festival is one of the most celebrated festivals among Hindus and even people from other religion too worships the idol of Ganeshas he is considered to be the one to remove obstacles and First puja (worshiping) during any good thing to start will go to Lord Ganesha.
Next up for us will be the festival of Dussera where the story goes back to Ramayana and removal of Ten headed Ravana and I can't wait to bring that to you!!!!
Thanks all for the support and I hope you find this blog a bit informative about the Ganesha festival and the celebration being carried out in India and other countries where Hindu people are prominent.
P.S: All the photos are captured by me using my Oppo F9 Pro mobile and hence no citation is used for those.
Have a wonderful day :)