page_title: Ganesha
section_title: Beyond India and Hinduism
hierarchical_section_title: Ganesha / Beyond India and Hinduism
caption_attribution_description: English: Kangiten
context_page_description: Ganesha, or Ganesh, also known as Ganapati and Vinayaka, is one of the best-known and most worshipped deities in the Hindu pantheon. His image is found throughout India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bali and Bangladesh and in countries with large ethnic Indian populations including Fiji, Mauritius and Trinidad and Tobago. Hindu denominations worship him regardless of affiliations. Devotion to Ganesha is widely diffused and extends to Jains and Buddhists.
  Although he is known by many attributes, Ganesha's elephant head makes him easy to identify. Ganesha is widely revered as the remover of obstacles, the patron of arts and sciences and the deva of intellect and wisdom. As the god of beginnings, he is honoured at the start of rites and ceremonies. Ganesha is also invoked as patron of letters and learning during writing sessions. Several texts relate mythological anecdotes associated with his birth and exploits.
  Ganesha likely emerged as a deity as early as the 1st century CE, but most certainly by the 4th and 5th centuries CE, during the Gupta period, although he inherited traits from Vedic and pre-Vedic precursors.
context_section_description: Commercial and cultural contacts extended India's influence in Western and Southeast Asia. Ganesha is one of a number of Hindu deities who consequently reached foreign lands.
  Ganesha was particularly worshipped by traders and merchants, who went out of India for commercial ventures. From approximately the 10th century onwards, new networks of exchange developed including the formation of trade guilds and a resurgence of money circulation. During this time, Ganesha became the principal deity associated with traders. The earliest inscription invoking Ganesha before any other deity is associated with the merchant community.
  Hindus migrated to Maritime Southeast Asia and took their culture, including Ganesha, with them.  Statues of Ganesha are found throughout the region, often beside Shiva sanctuaries.  The forms of Ganesha found in the Hindu art of Philippines, Java, Bali, and Borneo show specific regional influences. The spread of Hindu culture throughout Southeast Asia established Ganesha worship in modified forms in Burma, Cambodia, and Thailand. In Indochina, Hinduism and Buddhism were practised side by side, and mutual influences can be seen in the iconography of Ganesha in the region.  In Thailand, Cambodia, and among the Hindu classes of the Chams in Vietnam, Ganesha was mainly thought of as a remover of obstacles. 
  Today in Buddhist Thailand, Ganesha is regarded as a remover of obstacles, the god of success. Thailand regards Ganesha mainly as the god of arts and academics. The belief was initiated by King Vajiravudh of Chakri Dynasty who was devoted to Ganesha personally. He even built a Ganesha shrine at his personal palace, Sanam Chandra Palace in Nakhon Pathom Province where he focused on his academic and literature works. His personal belief regarding Ganesha as the god of arts was formally became prominent following the establishment of the Fine Arts Department where he took Ganesha as the seal. Today, Ganesha is depicted both in the seal of the Fine Arts Department, and Thailand's first prominent fine arts academy; the Silpakorn University.
  Before the arrival of Islam, Afghanistan had close cultural ties with India, and the adoration of both Hindu and Buddhist deities was practised. Examples of sculptures from the 5th to the 7th centuries have survived, suggesting that the worship of Ganesha was then in vogue in the region.
  Ganesha appears in Mahayana Buddhism, not only in the form of the Buddhist god Vināyaka, but also as a Hindu demon form with the same name.  His image appears in Buddhist sculptures during the late Gupta period.  As the Buddhist god Vināyaka, he is often shown dancing.  This form, called Nṛtta Ganapati, was popular in northern India, later adopted in Nepal, and then in Tibet.  In Nepal, the Hindu form of Ganesha, known as Heramba, is popular; he has five heads and rides a lion. Tibetan representations of Ganesha show ambivalent views of him. A Tibetan rendering of Ganapati is tshogs bdag. In one Tibetan form, he is shown being trodden under foot by Mahākāla,(Shiva) a popular Tibetan deity. Other depictions show him as the Destroyer of Obstacles, and sometimes dancing. Ganesha appears in China and Japan in forms that show distinct regional character. In northern China, the earliest known stone statue of Ganesha carries an inscription dated to 531. In Japan, where Ganesha is known as Kangiten, the Ganesha cult was first mentioned in 806.
  The canonical literature of Jainism does not mention the worship of Ganesha. However, Ganesha is worshipped by most Jains, for whom he appears to have taken over certain functions of the god of wealth, Kubera. Jain ties with the trading community support the idea that Jainism took up Ganesha worship as a result of commercial connections. The earliest known Jain Ganesha statue dates to about the 9th century. A 15th-century Jain text lists procedures for the installation of its images. Images of Ganesha appear in the Jain temples of Rajasthan and Gujarat.
caption: The Japanese form of Ganesha – Kangiten, late 18th/early 19th-century painting by Shorokuan Ekicho
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