Child Ganesha in the Lap of Mother Parvati

A bold feat of imagination and with no apparent apprehension as to whether the believing mind would approve seeing in a mother from the courtyard of a modern house the ever first mother Parvati, Shiva’s consort, the artist of this contemporary masterpiece has created with firm strokes of brush Parvati cradling child Ganesha in her lap. In visualizing his theme : a four-armed form of the child Ganesha holding his favourite ‘laddu’ and axe sprawling in his mother’s lap with absolute satisfaction on face for being its sole occupant with no rival around, a simple unassuming female form holding in her hand a Shiva-ling icon with a rosary and flower-garland, and a tiny icon of Ganesha’s mount mouse, the artist, packing into the contemporary the ethos of tradition, has been as respectful to both, the tradition and the contemporaneous. It is with her identity as the mother of Ganesha that her identity as Parvati and as Shiva’s consort reveals.

Though in an unstitched traditional textile – a sari, but dyed, printed and worn in the modus revealing modernity, even Europeanism at least in the sari’s tint, this representation of Parvati spans the earliest with the latest : the vision of ‘the unborn’ into a frame ‘born to die’. The artist’s creative imagination has a wider perspective, especially in exploring his subject’s inner and multi-dimensionality of her being. While portraying a caressing mother holding her child with her left hand, he has also portrayed a devoted wife holding in her other hand a symbolic ling-icon representing her spouse Shiva, and a mind occupied in his thoughts. The Shiva-ling carried in her right hand is not for her a votive icon for ritual worship but a living entity, and the flower-garland she has laid around is an expression of her devotion to him who is her part, not one beyond or separate from her. She carries a rosary around her fingers but not turning its beads; it stands for a mind circumambulating around his name and image.

The four-armed Ganesha, a plumpish child as tender as a velvet toy, endowed with soft silken transparent skin identical to child Krishna’s image in Tanjore art, is not unaware of his supreme divine power and his sectarian role. Besides carrying an axe for protecting the innocent and weak and punishing the wicked, and a ‘laddu’, symbolising good, auspicious and riches with which he rewards the right-doers, he holds one of his other two hands in ‘abhaya’ – protective posture, and in the fourth, a pair of lotuses. Apart, his form has been conceived with a peacock feather crest typical of Krishna. Thus, with lotuses in hands and a peacock crest, this son of Shiva stands in between Shaivite and Vaishnava lines in a conciliating role. However, in his demeanour as if seated in an arm-chair, twisted trunk, style of hair and an air of pride as one enjoying some special privilege, the artist has conceived this image of Ganesha essentially as a child.

This description by Prof. P.C. Jain and Dr. Daljeet. Prof. Jain specializes on the aesthetics of literature and is the author of numerous books on Indian art and culture. Dr. Daljeet is the curator of the Miniature Painting Gallery, National Museum, New Delhi. They have both collaborated together on a number of books.