Ganesha Ji

Ganesha is the elephant-headed remover of obstacles, invoked before almost any new undertaking, from a wedding to a business opening to the start of a book. He's one of the most instantly recognisable and most widely worshipped deities across Hindu traditions, regardless of which god a household otherwise favours.

Ganapati, like Ganesha itself, means "lord of the ganas" (Shiva's attendants), marking his role as their leader. Vinayaka means roughly "remover" or "the one who leads without a superior." Vighnaharta and Vighnaraja both name him directly as remover, or lord, of obstacles. Lambodara ("pot-bellied") is an affectionate physical epithet. Ekadanta ("one-tusked") recalls the story of his broken tusk, used as a pen to help the sage Vyasa write the Mahabharata.

Shown with a human body and an elephant's head, usually a rounded belly, and typically four arms holding some combination of an axe, a lotus, a bowl of his favourite sweet, the modak, and one hand often in a blessing gesture. He's frequently missing one tusk. His mount is a mouse or rat, a pairing often read as large wisdom balanced against a small, agile vehicle able to go anywhere. He's shown seated or dancing, and in many South Indian and some other regional depictions, alongside two consort figures, Riddhi and Siddhi (prosperity and spiritual power), though whether he is married at all is itself a genuine regional difference, discussed below.

The most widely told origin has Parvati forming him from turmeric paste to guard her privacy while bathing, without Shiva's knowledge; when Shiva returns and the boy, not recognising him, blocks his way, Shiva beheads him in anger. Realising the mistake, Shiva restores him to life with the head of the first creature found, an elephant, and declares him leader of his own attendants (the ganas) as recompense. In another well-known story, Ganesha and his brother Kartikeya are set a contest to see who can circle the world first; while Kartikeya sets off on his peacock, Ganesha simply circles his parents Shiva and Parvati, declaring them his entire world, and wins. He's also credited with breaking off one of his own tusks to use as a writing implement when the sage Vyasa needed to dictate the Mahabharata faster than a reed pen could manage.

Son of Shiva and Parvati (in the dominant telling, formed by Parvati alone before Shiva's involvement); brother of Kartikeya. Whether he has a wife at all varies by region and tradition, some traditions, especially in parts of South India, give him no consort; others pair him with Riddhi and Siddhi, or in some Puranic material, Buddhi (intellect). This isn't a minor detail, it reflects a real difference in how his character is understood from place to place.

He's invoked at the start of any new venture and worshipped before other deities in most pujas, a convention so consistent it's one of the most recognisable features of Hindu ritual practice generally. Ganesh Chaturthi, his major festival, is celebrated with particular scale and public devotion in Maharashtra, where large community idols are installed and later immersed in water, and has grown into one of the most visible Hindu festivals worldwide.

Ganesha worship is broadly consistent in reverence across India compared with some other deities on this list, but real regional differences do exist. His marital status, as noted above, is genuinely disputed: numerous South Indian traditions and temples depict him as an unmarried, celibate bachelor god, while much North Indian and Puranic material gives him a wife or wives. His name and iconography also travelled well beyond India: he's worshipped as Kangiten in Japanese Buddhism and appears, under various names, across Southeast Asian Buddhist and Hindu-influenced traditions in Thailand, Cambodia, and Indonesia, sometimes with quite different attributes than the Indian original.