Ganesha and Santa Claus
Posted on 05. Dec, 2021 by Paul Sochaczewski in Ganesha and Collecting
For more stories about the sweet-loving, pot-bellied, elephant-headed god everybody admires you might enjoy my book Searching for Ganesha:
Explorer’s Eye Press. Geneva. Switzerland
ISBN: Print: 978-2-940573-37-0 // E-Book: 978-2-940573-38-7
Ganesha and Santa Claus. The similarities are too great to ignore.
Ganesha and Santa Claus
Two world-famous personalities separated at birth?
MUMBAI and NORTH POLE
Some people (well, me, primarily) have compared the generous Hindu elephant-headed god Ganesha to the similarly kind-hearted Santa Claus. They are remarkably similar, and anthropological genealogists (a couple of my friends who took Anthro 101 at university) consider the two personalities to be at least first cousins, and possibly twin brothers, separated at birth. We await DNA analysis.
Here’s the 16-point evidence.
1. Morphology
Both Ganesha and Santa Claus are rotund.
Two of Ganesha’s 108 names are Lambodara (Pot Belly) and Mahodara (Great Belly). His big stomach can be explained in two ways. First, he has swallowed all the troubles of the world in order to protect mankind from suffering. Second, his cosmic beer belly is necessarily large in order to contain the wisdom of all universes — past, present, and future.
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Santa Claus’s robust figure, which has been described as “a little round belly that shook when he laugh’d, like a bowl full of jelly,” is due to the perils of Western civilization. He lives a couch-potato existence during most of the year. He sits comfortably in his North Pole hideaway, supervising, by remote closed-circuit TV, thousands of undocumented elves who make up his toy-making workforce. In his leisure time it is thought he does not exercise but instead relaxes in front of the fire, thinking about how to make children happy while enjoying his wife’s home-baked cookies.
2. They Were Created About the Same Time
The first records of Ganesha date to the 4th to 5th centuries CE.
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Santa Claus’s precursor was Saint Nicholas, a 4th-century CE Greek Christian bishop who lived in what today is Turkey. A devoutly pious Christian, Saint Nicholas is usually portrayed as a full-bearded cleric in red ceremonial robes and was noted for offering generous gifts to the poor.
One of the earliest representations of Ganesha, from central India, c. 5th-century CE.
Saint Nicholas, the precursor to Santa Claus, c. 4th- to 5th-century CE.
3. Making a List of Who’s Been Naughty and Nice
Ganesha keeps a record of who’s been nice (in his worldview that means upholding Hindu dharma). He doesn’t remove obstacles simply because someone asks; he insists that the devotee make an appropriate offering and be of good heart.
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Santa Claus not only has a list, but he checks it twice.
4. Sweet Tooth, lactose-tolerant
Both Ganesha and Santa Claus enjoy sugary delicacies and a glass of milk.
Ganesha’s favorite treats are sweet dumplings called modak (central India) or laddu (north India). They are shaped like money parcels, related to Ganesha’s ability to help a believer become wealthy.
And Ganesha has a well-documented love of milk, evidenced by a “milk miracle” that occurred in September 1995 when a devotee in New Delhi saw a Ganesha statue “drink” a spoonful of milk that was offered. This event was soon followed by dozens of similar events, creating a nationwide sensation that quickly went global.
Indian soldiers on the western border with Punjab stopped their maneuvers to worship Ganesha. The Bombay and Delhi stock exchanges closed while traders offered milk to Ganesha. A rumor spread that an elephant-headed boy, a possible reincarnation of Ganesha, had been born that morning in a Punjab town. The right-wing Hindu political parties pounced on this sensation (some cynics say they instigated it) declaring the milk-drinking was a “prophecy” that they would win the general election the following year. (The 1996 election produced a hung parliament with no single party having a clear majority.) The phenomenon, which had rapidly spread globally, stopped as quickly as it had started. Indian scientists proved that the “miracle” was caused by a combination of surface tension and capillary effect.
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Santa Claus is known to appreciate homemade cookies and a glass of cold milk that is waiting for him when he makes a home visit. (Note: One Christmas I awoke to find a note from Santa: “Thanks for the milk, but next year perhaps you might leave a beer.”)
5. Flashy Outfits and Unique Style Sense
Ganesha is pictured with powerful symbols of his importance. He often sits on a throne in what is called the “regal” posture. He might be pictured with an assortment of “attributes” (he has some 74 in total), including the trident of his father Shiva, representing the three-pronged powers of love, wisdom, and action. He might hold a lotus, symbolizing enlightenment emerging from murky spiritual waters. He has a sacred serpent, the Naga, entwined around his body, representing kundalini power. He wields a noose to enable the faithful to arrest delusion, curb the ego, and restrain passion.
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Santa Claus too has a unique sense of personal grooming and fashion. He has never cut his white hair or beard, wears small round spectacles, and always appears in public wearing the same distinctive outfit — a bright red coat with white-fur collar and cuffs, white-fur-cuffed red trousers, a cute floppy red hat with a white-fur pompon, and a black-leather belt and boots.
6. Catchy and Memorable Slogans
Ganesha is associated with the respectful chanted mantra: “Om Gan Ganpataye Namaha” while Santa Claus is recognized by his exuberant: “Ho-ho-ho!”
7. Unusual transport
Most Hindu gods are assisted by a vahana, a Sanskrit term that roughly means “celestial vehicle.” Ganesha relies on a mouse named Musika for assistance. Elephant-headed, large-bodied Ganesha can take care of the big life-challenging problems people face, but Musika can go into nooks and crannies to alleviate the humdrum daily difficulties people encounter.
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Santa Claus owns a team of flying reindeer who enable him to circumnavigate the world at exceptional speed, led by a super-reindeer named Rudolph whose bright red nose illuminates the team’s path through harsh winter weather.
In this early 20th bronze from Sri Lanka in the author’s collection, Ganesha is shown in his chariot, being pulled by his trusty “vehicle” Musika.
Santa Claus relies on eight flying reindeer to circumambulate the world at great speed.
8. Similarly famous
A recent Google search for “Ganesha” yields 1.6 billion hits, while “Santa Claus” generates 1.8 billion hits.
9. Obscure Wives
Ganesha’s consorts are not wives in the Western sense, they are personifications of his shakti, his creative energy. The number of his wives is uncertain. Depending on which version of the legend you accept, Ganesha is: a) unmarried and celibate, b) has two wives — Buddhi (representing intelligence and wisdom) and Siddhi (spiritual power) — or c) has three wives — Riddhi (prosperity) joins to form a menage a quatre. In the infrequent images in which the wives appear, they are generally shown as smaller figures standing at Ganesha’s side. Although created by Lord Brahma specifically because Ganesha was unable to find a bride as wonderful as his mother, none of the wives feature prominently in the Hindu pantheon as independent deities and would remain in obscurity without the celebrity status of their famous husband.
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Santa Claus’s wife does not have a clear identity. She is generally portrayed as a plump, devoted hausfrau who happily stays out of the limelight and supports her husband in his vital work by baking brownies and handling paperwork (obtaining work permits for the elves and replying to correspondence). Several American films have invented names for her — Jessica (in the 1970 film Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town), Anya (1985 film Santa Claus: The Movie), Margaret (2011 film Arthur Christmas), and Ruth (2020 film Fatman). None of these names are credible; most Western scholars simply refer to her as Mrs. Claus (similarly Nordic scholars refer to her by her honorific: Kone, Vaimo, or Maka, depending on their determination of Santa’s nationality). I’ve learned, however, from reliable sources posting in social media, that her close friends, with whom she plays canasta, sips schnapps, and trades cookie recipes, affectionately call her Carol.
10. Global Jet-setters
Both Ganesha and Santa Claus travel huge distances without difficulty. They never get stuck in traffic, never have a flight delayed, and never have to put up with obnoxious fellow passengers.
In my book Searching for Ganesha, I tell a tale about brotherly cunning in the hope of earning a precious reward. In a nutshell: One day a group of gods visited the Shiva-Parvati household and announced that they would present a divine modak containing the nectar of supreme knowledge and immortality to one of their two sons. But there was a condition: “This is a special sweet and must be given only to the wisest and most deserving boy who completes a challenge.”
“Me, me!” Ganesha and his elder brother Kartikeya cried in unison.
Their mother Parvati would not give in to whining.
“You two can compete for it, like normal children. I’ll give the sweet of wisdom to the first son who circumambulates the universe first.”
Kartikeya was stronger and faster, and he flew off on his trusty vahana, Parvani, the celestial peacock. Ganesha lounged around the house, ignoring his mother’s scolding “since you’re not doing anything useful, you might as well clean your room.”
After eons and eons, the family got news that Kartikeya was returning. Ganesha, who had been nibbling a mango and watching cricket, calmly got off his ample bum and waddled around his parents three times.
“What on earth are you doing?” his mother asked.
“I’m circumambulating the realm of eternity,” he said. “My parents encompass the entire universe. The one we know and all universes yet to be named.”
And so Ganesha won the fraternal competition, and, to this day, is rewarded by offerings of modak.
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Santa Claus flies at ridiculous speed to visit every household in the world and leave presents for children. It is thought he is assisted by kind air traffic controllers who clear his path and by local police forces worldwide who do not respond to anxious calls that “a fat, bearded man dressed in red and carrying a big sack is climbing through my neighbor’s window.”
Karttikeya flew to distant universes to try to win the sacred modak of wisdom, while his wiser brother Ganesha lounged at home with his parents.
On Christmas Eve, Santa Claus travels to every corner of the Earth to deliver presents.
11. Mysterious Parentage
Ganesha was born through magical incantations and his mother’s exfoliated skin.
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Santa Claus’s parentage is unknown.
12. Isolated, Frigid, Private Homes, Far from the People Who Love Them
While tropical Maharashtra in central India is the most fervent Ganesha stronghold, his original home was with his parents, Shiva and Parvati, in the highest snow-clad mountains of the Himalaya.
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Santa Claus lives at or near the North Pole. The exact location is unknown, and at least six countries claim to be his residence. It is not known whether he pays taxes in any of those sites.
13. Both Are Particularly Busy at One Time of the Year
Ganesha is fêted at Ganesha Chaturthi, also called Vinayaka Chaturthi, a massive 10-day festival usually held in late August, early September during which believers pray to the god and parade majestic statues of Ganesha.
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Santa Claus comes into his own … well, you know very well when Santa Claus appears.
The highlight of Ganesha worship comes in the annual ten-day Ganesha Chaturthi. The festival begins on the fourth day of the waxing moon, shukla chaturthi, of the month of Bhadrapada, which is the sixth month of the Hindu calendar, usually falling in August-September in the Gregorian calendar.
Santa Claus makes his grand appearance in the Macy’s parade in New York, several weeks before his very busy gift-giving on Christmas Eve.
14. Ability to Remove Obstacles
A large part of Ganesha’s popularity is due to his ability to remove obstacles. His ability is so pronounced that even when Hindus begin to pray to a different god, they first offer a prayer to Ganesha so that he might open the gateway that will assure that the prayer gets through to the designated deity.
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Santa Claus is well-known for easily sliding down thin chimneys without harm to person or gifts. In the event no chimney is present, he can stealthily enter and exit any dwelling without causing damage or being noticed.
15. Neither owns his own identity
Ganesha and Santa Claus do not retain any rights to their names, images, or myths. They exist in the public domain. Without copyright or trademark restrictions, artists and marketeers the world over are free to use to use Ganesha and Santa Claus for an unlimited variety of advertising, product names, and legends. Think how much could be achieved if just a tiny royalty for each commercial use of the Ganesha or Santa Claus name, image, or trademark would be paid to a global fund to research cures for children’s diseases, alleviate poverty, reverse desertification, safeguard women’s rights, and provide pay rises to teachers and health care workers.
16. Both have been used as propaganda symbols for political movements
At about the same time, Ganesha and Santa Claus became symbols of powerful political and social movements. We do not know whether they consented to such use of their names and images.
Ganesha played a key role in the Indian independence movement. Bal Gangadhar Tilak (1856-1920) was a prominent leader of the Indian independence movement. He realized that Indians needed to join together and speak with a common voice, but large political gatherings were forbidden by the British East India Company. Tilak, whom the British dubbed The Father of Indian Unrest, understood that Ganesha was loved and worshipped by all castes and classes and could be a unifying symbol for the country. And he knew that while the British could prohibit political protest marches, they could not stop religious gatherings. He channeled the rising patriotic spirit and turned a small, private household Ganesha ceremony into a massive annual Ganesha street festival, now known as Ganesha Chaturthi, celebrated by millions.
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In the dark days of the American Civil war, Harper’s Weekly printed a cartoon of Santa Claus supporting Union forces. The engraving shows Santa, who has arrived in a sleigh, visiting a Union army camp to distribute gifts. He offers the brave soldiers necessities, such as warm socks and copies of the magazine in which the image was published. He entertains the soldiers with a satiric toy jumping jack dangling from a noose, its chest lettered “Jeff” in reference to the Confederate President Jefferson Davis.
Ganesha, “the God for everyman,” according to independence leader Bal Gangadhar Tilak, was used as a powerful symbol and propaganda tool in the Indian independence movement. The large sign transliterated from the Hindi as Gīt Gāyā Patharon Ney, very roughly translates “The stones sing a song.” According to historian Rana P. B. Singh, the phrase is “used to emotionally motivate innocent and devout masses of Hindus. The stone statue of Ganesha is also singing with them; if you have faith you can feel it.”
German-American artist Thomas Nast created the first modern image of Santa Claus, which appeared in Harper’s Weekly in January 1863. Santa Claus wears a jacket of stars and pants of stripes, indicating his support of Union soldiers in the American Civil War.