Ganesh – India Early 19th Century Around 1800

Large Gilt Bronze Sculpture
While single-headed Ganesh are common, our rare three-headed statue is a figure more commonly found in the Himalayan regions. This is the Sri Ganesh Ji idol also known as Trimukhi Ganpati. The three heads embody the three qualities of living nature: Sattva (intelligence, consciousness, truth), Rajas (energy, passion, desire) and Tamas (darkness, darkness, inertia). Devotees who worship it consider it the most powerful idol of all. In his hands, our Ganesh holds conch shells - considered to be the instruments of war music and symbolizing victory and self-fulfillment -, round sweets - laddu, which represent the reward for a wise life and the eternal sweetness of a fulfilled existence - and baby elephants that evoke his genesis. The central deity of the Hindu pantheon, Ganesh is both the protective god of homes and that of knowledge, virtue and wisdom. It's hard to be more positive! But he is above all the lord of the obstacles that he places in the way of the impious and that he removes from the path of his worshipers. He is invoked before any important undertaking and at the launch of a project so that nothing hinders its success. Ganesh is the son of Shiva, the liberating god, and Parvati, the goddess of beauty. Many legends surround the birth of the elephant-headed god, the most widespread of which tells the story of Shiva wanting to return home after a long absence and Ganesh, who was raised alone by his mother, had learned to protect the door of the family home from any intrusion. Not knowing his father, Ganesh forbade Shiva from entering the house. The latter, furious and not knowing that it was his son, cut off his head which rolled away and disappeared. Parvati then threatened to destroy the universe if Ganesh was not brought back to life. Shiva promised to replace the head and ordered his soldiers to bring him the head of the first juvenile creature they encountered. It was a baby elephant. The soldiers cut off its head and brought it back to Shiva who quickly placed it on his son's body, restoring him to life. The figure of Ganesh agglomerates a large number of symbols that make him a highly spiritual creature. Its plump belly contains the universe and digests the trials of life, its head refers to majesty, wisdom and strength, its small eyes allow concentration and confer great visual acuity, its large ears offer it a great capacity for listening and discernment, the tusks embody the duality of man who must deal with his emotions while seeking wisdom, the trunk, both a sensory organ and a tool, symbolizes the balance between knowledge and action, and from its small mouth only essential words come out ...

The statue is firmly anchored on a heavy blackened wooden base.
Height: 78 cm - 93 cm with the base