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Ganesha’s Father: Shiva
Ganesha’s Father: Shiva
Hello all! It is Ganesha back again for another story! This time I will be telling a story about an encounter my father Shiva had with a fellow not too different from me. It is a wonderful story that threw my mother Parvati into a fit. It even included getting the help of Vishnu thanks to my mother’s influence with him. Anyways, time to dive in.
Shiva and Gajasura
Shiva and Gajasura
Once upon a time, there was a demon named Gajasura who resembled an elephant. While he has many similarities to me, namely in the face, Gajasura was an elephant all over and one could easily mistake him for a real elephant. Regardless of his appearance, Gajasura was a big fan of my father. He spent years at a time fasting in the name of my father, offering praise and penitence. Thankfully, since I am Shiva’s son, I do not have to fast for him. It would be very hard for me. I could not stay away from food that long!
Feeling pleased with Gajasura’s praise Shiva decided to pay him a visit. While he was there, my father offered him a gift of that which he desired. Gajasura asked for the ability to emanate fire from his body in order scare those that dared to approach him. Shiva granted him this wish and went on his way. However, this story does not end here. Gajasura continued his penitence for my father relentlessly no matter how many times my father went to acknowledge his praise. Shiva once commented to me how it annoyed him having to leave constantly to go check on Gajasura.
However, one day my father went missing. We looked all around our home at Mount Kailash, but to no avail. My mother Parvati asked all the soldiers in his army where he had gone, but no one had a clue where he was. A week after my father’s disappearance my mother was desperate enough to go ask Vishnu, her brother, where Shiva was. My mother always hated asking Vishnu for favors, as he is such a busy god already. Upon hearing our requests, Vishnu agreed to help us find Shiva.
Vishnu knew that my father was a bit reckless in giving wishes to his followers; therefore, it was very likely that this would be the problem. After a short search, he located my father in the belly of Gajasura! Can you believe it? My father had been eaten by an elephant…awkward… Anyways we had to devise a plan to free him.
Shiva and Gajasura (Source)
Vishnu had the idea of performing a comedy in order to put Gajasura into a good mood. He made my father’s bull Nandi start dancing and transformed himself into a flutist. It was quite funny to watch and it threw Gajasura into a laughing fit. Enormously pleased with the performance, Gajasura asked the disguised Vishnu what he desired, to which he replied, “I want you to liberate Shiva from your stomach.” At this point Gajasura knew it was Vishnu, as he was the only one that could possibly know what had happened. Caught by Vishnu he agreed to free Shiva. My mother was so happy to see him safe and I had quite a laugh from the whole adventure. My father has never been able to look at me the same since then, and I cannot blame him!
Author's Notes
Author's Notes
For this story, I wanted to cover Ganesha's parents. While I originally wanted it to focus on the interaction of Shiva and Parvati, I found that to be a rather difficult topic. In the end, I found this wonderful story that covers some of the personality of Shiva. Additionally, it conveys how his actions will have effects on his family. Parvati was worried for him the entire time and was forced to ask her brother for a favor, which she did not want to do. Ideally, if I do another story it would focus heavily on Parvati, at least as much as this story focused on Shiva.
As far as the story is concerned, it is very close to the original story. The only alteration I made to it is telling the story from Ganesha's point of view to maintain the consistency with the rest of the storybook. By doing this, I was able to add commentary about the family’s interactions, and include some of Ganesha's comedic self-reflections. I have enjoyed writing in this style and plan on continuing it throughout the project.
The original story can be found on this Wikipedia page. Here is a link to the penitence that Gajasura performed, but I felt it unnecessary to describe in the main story.
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