Lord Ganesha is assumed to be a God of Intelligence. It is a symbol of science.Every year we celebrate Ganesh Festival and it brings joy to everyone .Lord Ganesha is most popular mainly in Maharashtra. You wont find that much craze about Lord Ganesha in south ,north or west side of India. There is a reason why it is so. We have heard many story about Lord Ganesha. Most famous story of Birth of Lord Ganesha is :
Lord Ganesha was created by the sweat of goddess Parvati . Which is unacceptable to me at first place.That means Ganesha is not a biological son of Shankar and Parvati . Shankar was not aware of this creation of parvati and somehow he became angry on him and cut his head (why he did it is another story which I guess everyone might be knowing so I did not mention it here). When Parvati got to know about this, she argued with Shankar and insisted him to bring him alive and then he used a head of baby elephant and attached to Ganesha's dead body and made him alive (That means to make his son alive ,he took life of someone else). I find it funny . That means Gods can go against the rule of Nature. If god has created a Nature and set the rules ,how could he possibly break them . And if Lord Shankar cant control his anger which is a human quality(Anger,Impatient,Selfishness ..etc) then how could he deserved to be devoted and become a god ? Which completely states that this is a story build by a human.Well this is completely new topic and we will discuss about it someday in my new posts. Let us first understand how these stories came and when actually Lord Ganesha came into existence.
If you see Ramayana and Mahabharata , you wont find anything mentioned anywhere about Lord Ganesha. Even at the era of Gautam Buddha and Mahavir , there are no traces of Lord Ganesha. So when did he actually came into existence ? I tried to find these answer and I personally found that , the existence of Lord Ganesha came in between 900 -1200 it was even praised during the period of 1200-1400 and praised in Gupta Period but actually got famous at the time of first Bajirao Peshva. If you see, the Ashtavinayaka's (8 avatar's of lord ganesha) can be found near Pune in Maharashtra. Peshve developed Pune and give it a new culture along with new gods which were never existed before. The stories were then created and later on these stories were mixed in Veda's and Upanishida's . The stories of How Lord Ganesh defeated Daityas made him Vighnaharta. Lord Ganesha travels on Mouse(in some idols he travels on peacock, lion and Sesha-the devine serpa and in some sculptures it is without any vahana-it clearly shows how the stories have been made about it. Though later on mouse got famous as his vahana.) which is a symbol of destruction, then how could lord Ganesha possibly be Vighnaharta ? It is found that , during Peshave era , these stories were spread near Pune areas. And we are still following it .(Though there are few references in Tulsi Das's literature and even Ramdaas have praised him ,but I doubt that they might have added later on.)
Lokmanya Tilak later on started Ganesh Festival ,so that people can come together and meet each other. This festival became famous by movies , Actors and Actress and took a wild avatar. The good thing about this god is , though it exists only in stories (at least I believe so ) , people have strong believe on him and they devote him. He is famous from children to old and he is the most lovable God. Basically its a human psychology, when you believe that yes I have offered prayer to god and he is going to listen to me . That gives positive energy to you and which will make things possible ,which you thought are impossible. I will bring some more stories about this in my next posts . Keep visiting ..!!!