People are totally commodifying and destroying the iconography of the idol by using any type of material in the name of “eco-friendly or Green” Ganesha
Nandkumar M Kamat
My family deity- kuldevata is Lord Ganesha of Khandola which gives me some authority to put certain things bluntly. The present pandemic has cast a shadow over enthusiasm of people to celebrate ‘chavath’ or the Ganesha worship festival. The nation is observing centenary of death of Lokmanya Tilak who introduced and popularised public Ganesha worship festival or ‘Sarvajanik Ganeshotsavas” in Maharashtra.
Ganesh Chaturthi festival beginning this weekend is culturally, socially, economically a major Hindu festival of Konkan and Goa. Over one lakh Ganesha idols are sold in Goa indicating the popularity of the deity among the one million Hindu worshippers. Iconic Ganesha worship entered Goa during the rule of imperial Guptas in AD 4- 5th century. Oldest Ganesha idols are found at Peda, Loliem, Cudnem, Bicholim and Chandor, Salcete. Reddi was part of ancient Goa ruled by Badami chalukya where a giant monolithihic Ganesha idol is worshipped. Under the impulse and influence of the tantriks from saivaite Shakta, Kapalika and Ganapatya sects ancient “gaunkaris’, the village communities, promoted Ganesha temples from the rule of Badami Chalukyas to Vijayanagara empire for more than a thousand years. Considering the idol worship as paganistic practice during the 16th century the Portuguese systematically destroyed ancient Ganesha temples which had existed at Chorao, Divar, Ela, Carambolim, Olaulim, Punola, Pomburpa, Sangolda, Siolim, Cuelim, Betalbhatim and Cavelosshim. The deity was extremely popular with the agrarian communities in Konkan and Goa. The season of maturity of rainfed rice crops matched with this festival. The tradition of seasonal plant biodiversity display called “matoli” embedded this festival in folk knowledge matrix as people learnt usefulness of various edible, medicinal and poisonous plants. The rich, diverse and varied culinary traditions of Goa also got a boost during this festival.
Ethnomusicologically except the all-male Shigmo spring festival no other Hindu festival in Goa has contributed as much as ‘Chavath” to devotional music. The ‘Ghumot aratis” or devotional songs played to the accompaniment of ‘Ghumots’ the traditional membranophones and the cymbals with typical tonal and regional variations added a special cultural flavour to the festival.
The most remarkable aspect of Ganesha festival in Goa after the Liberation was the tremendous respect shown by Goa’s Church authorities and Roman catholic brethren towards the worshippers and the ready acceptance of Catholic offerings to the deity by the Hindu community. People from all religions now visit the Hindu households which worship this deity during the ‘chavath’. This spirit of social harmony and unity would be diluted this year due to restrictions on social interactions.
Lord Ganesha is considered ‘Vighnaharta” (slayer of the evil) and “sukhkarta” (benefactor, boon giver) so the only prayer during the present pandemic would be obviously its early end. But would that be possible without self-imposed discipline by the one million worshippers? The pandemic makes it very difficult for any religious and ritualistic activity associated with the festival. In many families large numbers of kins would assemble making social distancing practically impossible. Even house to house visits for viewing the Ganesha idols would not be advisable unless the worshippers restrict access for their own safety. Therefore all the individual Ganesha idol worshippers need to impose certain personal codes. First as per ancient Hindu iconography no idol made from anything except mud or clay must be worshipped. People are totally commodifying and destroying the iconography of the idol by using any type of material in the name of “eco-friendly or Green” Ganesha. This is not spiritually permissible. Permanent idols of stone, wood and metal or alloys are permitted but no temporary idol must be made from anything but clay. These overenthusiastic artists should not convert the deity into a piece of artwork for the sake of cheap publicity. Such commodification is destroying the sanctity and spirituality of Lord Ganesha in Goa.
The second requirement is to uniformly restrict the period of family worship to two days and not extend it beyond maximum five days due to the present pandemic as the probability of someone getting infected would increase as the festival gets extended. Third requirement is to avoid gathering in large groups and intermingling. From bringing the idol home till the immersion, social distancing of minimum two metres need to be observed. Nobody should think of taking out processions. The traditional ‘Aarti” groups visiting house to house in any village or municipal ward need to stop this practice only for this year. At the time of immersion overcrowding and stampedes are possible. This is a major anxiety of the state government also. So the locations for immersion need to be increased with optimal distance between them and the time of immersion should also be different to avoid overcrowding.
Last year people had not imagined that such a situation would take place but we are dealing with an invisible Virus. By worshipping Lord Ganesha automatically the evil would not vanish. It is for the people to understand their own responsibility by thinking deeply about the genesis of this virus and how it is connected to our mismanagement of the biosphere represented by the supreme deity. People who spend more time on Sanskritized and Brahministic rituals forget the ancient connection of Lord Ganesha to biosphere and ecosystems. The pandemic gives a straight and direct message to them this year for the ‘chavath”. It is not only blind worship and empty rituals and chanting of mantras which would change the circumstances but the actual practical actions by the humans to care, respect, conserve, protect and understand their life support systems.
A million Ganesha worshippers in Goa need to focus on community hygiene and public sanitation. All the wards where families worship this deity must vow to maintain cleanliness. Homestead, kitchen, balcony and terrace gardens must be popularized. The traditional Hindu ethos has tremendous respect for nature. But the commercialization of Ganesha festival during the past few decades has commodified the spiritual and ecospiritual dimension of this deity.
Who knows probably the deity would put the worshippers to test of self-discipline during the pandemic and if they pass it at the end the results would be seen in gradual flattening of the COVID19 seropositivity curve. If they fail and people celebrate the festival by forgetting the pandemic conditions then expect spikes in COVID19 positive cases. If that happens then nobody can hold Lord Ganesha responsible because it would be proof that we really didn’t get the true message from His worship- “protect this planet to protect yourself”. Happy Chavath to all the readers.