Material vs. Spiritual Reality

Vishnu, in times of great distress, will descend to Earth from heaven and take on either an animal or human form. Parashurama is Vishnu’s sixth form like this. In this form Parashurama used his axe to kill many unrighteous kings, and this is where this story starts.

Parashurama sighed in relief as he had finally found the last of the corrupt kings. He was happy as he was looking forward to going home and seeing Shiva’s new son Ganesha. As he walked through the halls of the palace in search of the corrupt king his adrenaline increased and finally he kicked open the doors of the throne room and found the king cowering inside.

He looked at the king and said, “I am Parashurama and I have come to kill you and release your people from your unjust rule. What do you have to say for yourself before I kill you?”

The king looked at Parashurama and said, “I have nothing to say other than that I was right in all I did.”

Parashurama gave him a nasty look and with one swing of his axe cleanly removed the king’s head from his body. With that Parashurama turned and went towards Mount Kailas to go visit Shiva and his new son and to give his blood soaked axe to Shiva as a show of all the good he did on Earth in all this time.

As Parashurama got to the base of Mount Kailas he noticed a stranger standing guard. As he got up to the guard he said, “Stand aside; I shall go up this mountain and visit with Shiva.”

Ganesha stood his ground firmly and asked, “Who are you and why should I let you up?”

Parashurama who was tired from his long campaign on Earth became irritated with the strange man’s questions and tried to shove him out of his way and said, “Out of my way, fool.”

Ganesha again firmly stood his ground; at this Parashurama got irritated and swung his axe at Ganesha and struck one of his tusks and cracked it.

At this moment Parvati, who had seen Vishnu coming and came down to see who he was, reached the bottom of the mountain and saw this before her. In her anger she transformed into Durga and said to Vishnu, “How dare you attack and hurt my son? I challenge you to a fight here and now.”

At this point Parashurama realized his mistake and quickly said, “It is I Vishnu. I am sorry I did not realize this man was Ganesha and I am sorry for hurting him. In return for my rash and harsh behavior I gift my new nephew with this axe.”

As soon as he gave the axe to Ganesha Parashurama’s anger and bloodlust disappeared and he became calm and meditated at Mount Kalias.

This is how Ganesha got his axe, or Parashu, which is the symbol of analysis. Its counterpart is the noose, or the Pasha, which is the symbol of synthesis.

Author’s Note:

For this story I wanted to tell about the axe and the noose that Ganesha often holds in his hand, and what they come to represent. I wanted to also explain how the two represent this concept with Ganesha about through understanding the material reality one can also realize the spiritual reality to. I kept as close to the original story of how Ganesha got the axe as I could. The only big difference is how I had Parashuram crack Ganesha’s tusk instead of breaking it off completely. I did this because I already wrote of how Ganesha broke his tusk and I did not want to have another version of the story that does not line up with the original in here. Also in the original story it does not make it clear wether Vishnu had met Ganesha before. It could have just been that Ganesha did not recognize Vishnu in his present form. I chose to go with one where Vishnu had not met Ganesha before because I feel it is a more likely than him not recognizing Ganesha. I chose this image of Ganesha because it clearly shows Ganesha holding the noose and the axe.

Bibliography: Ganesha

99 Thoughts on Ganesha by Devdutt Pattanaik