The Ganesha Purana (Sanskrit:; ; also spelled Ganeshpoorana) is a Hindu religious text dedicated to the Hindu deity Ganesha . It is an upapurāṇa that includes many stories and ritualistic elements relating to Ganesha. The Ganesha Purana and the Mudgala Purana are core scriptures for devotees of Ganesha, known as Ganapatyas . These are the only two Purana that are exclusively dedicated to Ganesha.
Significance
The Ganesha Purana and the Mudgala Purana are the two late Puranas (c A.D. 1300-1600) produced by the Ganapatya sect. These two Purana are considered authoritative by devotees of Ganesha, and include materials not found in earlier sources. During the medieval period the followers of Ganesha, the Ganapatyas, formed an independent religious movement dedicated to the worship of Ganesha as their preeminent deity, considering Ganesha to be the qualified (saguṇa) form of the ultimate unqualified (nirguṇa) brahman. The Ganesha Purana is pervaded with this concept and interprets well-known Puranic stories in new ways to emphasize the importance of Ganesha or to explain his relationships of other divinities. The Purana specifies many method of worship, key beliefs, and philosophical positions of the Ganapatya sect. The contents of the Ganesha Purana are difficult to summarize because they include a wide variety of stories and devotional materials. The general purpose of the work can be inferred from this set of questions that Vyāsa puts to Brahmā in the tenth chapter of the first Book (I.10.29-30 in Bailey's English edition):
"Who is this Ganesha? What is his real appearance (Sanskrit:; ; also spelled svarupa) and how can it be known? To whom has he previously been kindly disposed, four-faced god? How many are his incarnations and what deeds did they perform? Who previously worshipped him and in respect of what deed was he called to mind?"
The last chapter of the first book summarizes the lengthy narratives by saying:
"I have narrated the worship (Sanskrit:; ; also spelled upasana) of Ganesha to you in the course of a sequence of many tales. (I.92.53)
These statements confirm the role that this Purana plays in establishing the relationship between Ganesha and his followers through the use of both traditional Puranic stories and new material intended to emphasize the importance of Ganesha as a primary deity. A brief review of references to Ganesha in various Puranas appears in Courtright
Date of the work
The date of composition for both the Ganesha Purana and the Mudgala Purana, and their dating relative to one another, has been a matter of academic debate. Both works contain age-layered strata, but these strata have not been clearly defined through the process of critical editorship. Some strata of the available redactions of the Ganesha Purana and the Mudgala Purana probably reflect mutual influence upon one another, including direct references to one another. Thapan reviews different views on dating and states her own judgement that it appears likely that the core of the Ganesha Purana come into existence around the 12th and 13th centuries, being subject to interpolations during the succeeding ages. Thapan notes that these puranas, like other puranas, developed over a period of time as multi-layered works. Lawrence W. Preston considers that the period AD 1100-1400 is the most reasonable date for the Ganesha Purana because that period agrees with the apparent age of the sacred sites mentioned by it. Hazra dates the Ganesha Purana between AD 1100-1400. Farquhar dates it between AD 900-1350.
Structure of the text
The Ganesa Purana is divided into two sections. The Upasanakhanda or "section on devotion" has 92 chapters, and the Kridakhanda or "section on the divine play (of Gaṇeśa)" has 155 chapters. The Kridakhanda is also called the Uttarakhanda in the colophons. Chapter 46 of the Upasanakhanda includes a stotra (hymn) that's the source text for one of the best-known versions of the Ganesha Sahasranama (hymn of praise listing 1,000 names of Ganesha). This stotra is recited in many temples today as a living part of Ganesha devotion.
The Ganesha Gita
Chapters 138-48 of the Kridakhanda constitute the Ganesha Gita, which is modeled after the Bhagavad Gita, but adapted to place Ganesa in the divine role. The discourse is given to King Varenya during Ganesha's incarnation as Gajanana. Krishan says that a critical examination of the Ganesha gita shows that ninety percent of its stanzas are, with slight modifications, taken from the Bhagavad Gita. Their topics are the same: karma yoga, jnana yoga, bhakti yoga. Ganesha replaces Krishna in the divine role. In II.138.22 Ganesha asserts claims similar to those made by Krishna in BG 4.6-8: I create the world, maintain it and destroy it again; I'm Mahavishnu, Sadashiva, and Mahashakti, and Aryaman, the sun. In II.140.9-11 he says that he's unborn (aja), the life principle in all beings (bhūtātmā), beginningless (anādi), and lord (īśvara). Like Krishna, whenever there's an increase of unrighteousness (adharma) and decline of righteousness (dharma) he takes birth to protect the good and destroy the wicked.
The four incarnations of Ganesha
The Kridakhanda of the Ganesha Purana narrates the stories of four incarnations (Sanskrit:; ) of Ganesha in the four different yugas. These are not the same as the eight incarnations of Ganesha that are described in the Mudgala Purana.
Mahotkata Vinayaka, having ten arms and a red complexion. Different sources list either an elephant or lion as his mount . He was born to Kashyapa and Aditi in the Krita yuga. The name Kāśyapaḥ (descendant of Kaśyapa) for Ganesha refers to this incarnation. He killed the demon brothers Narantaka and Devantaka, as well as the demon Dhumraksha (Dhūṃrākşa).
· Mayuresvara, having six arms and a white complexion. He has a peacock as his mount. He was born to Shiva and Parvati in the Treta yuga. He incarnates for the purpose of killing the demon Sindhu (meaning "ocean" because he was born in an ocean). At the end of this incarnation he gives his peacock mount to his younger brother Skanda, with whom the peacock mount is generally associated.
· Gajanana, having four arms and born with a red complexion. He has a mouse as his mount. He is born to Shiva and Parvati in the Dvapara yuga. He incarnates for the purpose of killing the demon Sindura, who was so-named due to his reddish-pink complexion (see: Sindoor). It is during this incarnation that Ganesha gives the discourse known as the Ganesha Gita to King Varenya.
· Dhumraketu is grey in colour like ash or smoke . He has either two or four arms. He has a blue horse as his mount. He will come to end the decline of the Kali yuga. During this incarnation he kills numberless demons. Grimes notes that there's a parallel between this incarnation of Ganesha and the tenth and final incarnation of Vishnu, where he'll ride upon the white horse Kalki.
Source editions for the text
As of 2007 no "critical edition" had been issued for the Ganesha Purana. A "critical edition" of a Purana is a special type of scholarly edition in which many alternative readings from variant manuscripts have been reviewed and reconciled by scholars to produce a consensus text. If there's no critical edition, it means that individual editions may show significant variations in content and line numbering from one another. This is the case with the Ganesha Purana, so it's necessary to review multiple editions, which may differ from one another in significant ways. Greg M. Bailey, who has published a scholarly review and translation into English of the first portion of the Ganesha Purana, notes that there are hundreds of manuscripts for this purana in libraries in India, and that it was clearly very popular from the 17th to 19th centuries. The Bailey edition doesn't provide the Sanskrit text. This is the edition that Thapan cites in her book on the development of the Ganapatyas .