The elephant-headed, pot-bellied Ganesha is a popular God in the Hindu pantheon. Interestingly, the diminutive rat is depicted as his vehicle, at his beck and command, even looking up to him.
As humans, we were are given to exploiting our environment. In the worldly sense, humans are like thieves who take what is not theirs. The rat symbolises the characteristics of a robber, a worldly man.
The rat looks for a safe haven and burrows a hole deep into the earth. Then it moves all over, steals food and stores it in the hole. The snake, representing death, follows the rat into the hole. The snake eats the rat and lives comfortably in the hole, just as death strips us of all possessions, including life.
The elephant accumulates nothing; it freely moves about in the forest and eats only what it needs. The elephant’s trunk reaches high and can sense water at great distances. The elephant is a strong animal and it is believed to have a good memory.
The Ganas are the Indriyas or the five senses and are governed by the mind. The mind is the Lord of the Indriyas as these can be energised only by the mind. Thus, the mind is the Isha of Ganas or Ganesha. So Ganesha is depicted with an elephant head and body of a human being. It is not the material mind but the spiritual mind that is epitomised here. Sarada Devi, spouse of Ramakrishna Paramahansa, used to tell her disciples that unless you get the blessings of your mind, no endeavour will be successful. Hence the tradition among Hindus of offering prayers to Ganesha before embarking on a venture.
We face three kinds of obstacles: doubt or indecision, external factors and the unknown. Therefore, Ganesha is invoked as Vigneshwara, remover of obstacles.
The body of a man represented by the rat, a small mammal, carries a mind represented by a large mammal, the elephant. In the material world, it is always the large which contains the small and not the other way. But in the spiritual sphere, it is the reverse.
For example, the seed of a banyan tree contains the principle that brings forth not only a big banyan tree but also generations of banyan trees. The elephant’s trunk shows the reach of the mind; the head, the intellect, memory power and other sharp senses, and the huge belly, the subconscious mind, the storehouse of all vasanas. Symbolically, this powerful mind is the elephant that is riding on the small body represented by the rat.
A century ago when Lokamanya Tilak popularised the Ganesha festival in Pune, he sought to mobilise people to strive for and achieve swaraj or freedom. The idea is also to reach beyond mere political freedom, to strive to overcome greed and avarice towards living a selfless life. To rise above the mindset of a rat. This is the universal principle, as at present, the whole world is reeling under a rat mentality. Ganesha is not merely a Hindu God, He is the Lord in Every Heart with lofty ideals not only for the mundane but also for the spiritual world!
(Based on a dialogue the writer had two decades ago with Swami Rtananda Puri (1906-2000), former head of Narsinh Mutt of Banares.)