Lord Ganesha Cord Necklace

Email

Whatsapp

Facebook

Pinterest

Twitter

Copy link

Rare in its ethnic look, as if conceived for a young girl from a remote Rajasthani village or a hill state, dominating every eye by its imposing dimensions contrasted by an as much fine and elegant image of Lord Ganapati enshrining the box-pendant, this neck-ornament combining protective power with the power to attract and charm is simply exotic and exclusive. It is both, a piece of jewellery responding to the taste of those who look for tradition and ethnicity in their ensembles, as also the instrument, and perhaps more powerful than any, that wards off all evil influences. This necklace, modest and unpretentious, designed like an amulet choker : just a pendant and a cord-ring, though most artistically threaded, for holding it on the neck, strikes the eye by its stunning simplicity, the kind of beauty that astonishes the mind but disables it to translate its astonishment into words. This neck-ornament shall reveal the same beauty when couched elegantly on a ramp-walker’s breast as when hung on a humble reaper’s sun-burnt neck bent over her suckle.

The choker consists of two parts, a box-pendant, square in dimensions and styled like an amulet, and an artistically twisted tri-coloured silk cord with a metal disc and ring terminals to join two ends. The body of the amulet box enshrining the Ganapati image consists of copper except the drops-pendants and the rings holding them on its bottom, and the rings to support it on the cord. These are fabricated from sterling silver. The back and the sides of the box are plain, but the obverse has a window opening styled like a corbelled entrance with pillared sides, characteristic to a shrine. Besides the spandrels the entire obverse on all four sides of the window has been adorned with floral-creeper designs consisting of copper anodized in gold. The tri-colour cord consists of silk threads mainly magenta and golden, but some portions, also in light pink. The two cords, one on either side, and two ends of the third cord that holds the amulet box are joined using two wheels-like large ring-beads cast of silver.

Inside the window – the amulet-box’s mystic chamber as every amulet box is supposed to have, there enshrines the all-accomplishing and evil-barring image of Lord Ganesha, the god of auspiciousness and good who eliminates all evils and effects auspiciousness. Not a transformation on any line, Tantric or mystic, the four-armed Ganesha bestows, as suggest the attributes he carries, all his blessings straight and manifestly. Sprawling on his seat in ‘lalitasana’ – the posture revealing great aesthetic beauty, supported against a bolster he ensures good and weal. In his upper right hand he carries battle-axe, the tool of protection assuring freedom from fear, something that his normal right hand held in the posture of ‘abhay’ also denotes. The upper left hand holds a lotus, the symbol of accomplishment and fulfillment of whatever desired the fruit of which has been symbolized in Ganapati iconography by the ‘modaka’ – laddu or the ball of sweet, that he has been represented as carrying in his normal left hand as well as in his trunk. Thus, with the image of Lord Ganesha infused into it, or enshrining it, this piece of ornament acquires rare mystic powers that any powerful amulet has.

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. .