Novella of Indian Mythology

Unknown Stories About Ganesha

On the eve of Ganesh Chaturthi. We at Indian Novella are celebrating the birthday of Lord Ganesha whom we pray before every major event of our lives be it exams,interviews, adventures.Let’s look into  some unknown facts about Lord Ganesha.

1.Most of us pray Goddess Laksmi along with Ganesh but Lakshmi is not the wife of the Lord Ganesha.”Riddhi” ( wealth and prosperity ) and “Siddhi” ( intellectual and spiritual power ) are the two wedded wives of Lord Ganesha.There is a popular story that since Ganesha was the elephant-headed no  one wants to marry him so he started making troubles in the marriages of the other demi gods with his mount, Mice.Then Brahma created Riddhi and Siddhi on the plea of other demi gods.

2.Ganesh has two sons named “Subha ”( auspiciousness ) and  “Labha” (profit).We usually paste stickers named Subha and Labha on the eve of Diwali are actually the names of the sons of the lord Ganesha.

3.Ganesha is also called “EkDanta” because his lost his one tooth while fighting with ParshuRam, the  devotee of Lord Shiva.When ParshuRam strikes with the axe provided by lord shiva then to show respect towards his father and the weapon he took the blow of the weapon on his tooth and thus lost his tooth and became”EkDanta”.

4. Lord Ganesha was the one who wrote the great epic Mahabharata as sage Vyasa recited it to him. This was done on the condition that Vyasa would not stop while reciting the epic and Ganesha would not stop while writing, and also that Ganesha would not merely write it but would also understand every verse of it.

5.Ganesha used his broken tooth to write down the Epic ,Mahabharata

6.The axe we see that Ganesha holds in his hand was actually provided to him by ParshuRam when he fought with Ganesha and broke his tooth.So in order to repent as Ganesha was merely following the instruction of lord Ganesha to not allow anybody to disturb lord shiva during meditation.

7. In the rare incidents when we hear of Lord Ganesha being angry, he once cursed the moon as he laughed at his fat belly. Lord Ganesha cursed him saying whoever looks at the moon on Ganesh Chaturthi would be falsely blamed. This is still believed in most sections of the Hindu faith, as people avoid looking at the moon on Ganesh Chaturthi.

8. Lord Ganesha has around 108 names, including Vighna Harta (the remover of obstacles) and Buddhi Pradaayaka (the giver of wisdom and intellect).

9.In 1893, revolutionary freedom fighter Lokmanya Tilak urged the masses to come together to celebrate Ganesh Chaturthi.His main motive was to inculcate the feeling of patriotism among people at a time when British discouraged social gatherings.