Rodent Power
Posted on 12. Dec, 2021 by Paul Sochaczewski in Ganesha and Collecting
This article is one of a series, available here, that has been adapted from Searching for Ganesha: Collecting Images of the Sweet-Loving, Elephant-Headed Hindu Deity Everybody Admires. Available in paperback and ebook from Amazon.
ISBN: Print: 978-2-940573-37-0
E-Book: 978-2-940573-38-7
Rodent Power
Why is a Mouse Ganesha’s Vehicle?
by
Paul Spencer Sochaczewski
www.sochaczewski.com
The Lone Ranger rode a loyal white horse named Silver during his battles with Wild West outlaws. Batman drove the Batmobile to help him stamp out Gotham City villains. Santa has a sleigh, pulled by eight flying reindeer, to help him bring joy to countless children.
Ganesha, arguably a far more important global celebrity, has a mouse named Musika (also called Mooshikasura or Mooshika).
Why should such a majestic god have an insignificant mouse as his vehicle?
A common question, especially from folks unfamiliar with Hindu tradition.
The answer lies in two parts.
First, each important god has a vahana, a Sanskrit word that roughly means “celestial vehicle.” This is a Hindu equivalent of Air Force One, not merely a form of transportation but a symbol of power and personality, sacred in its own right, to assist the deity in the tough tasks of defeating demons and restoring balance to a topsy-turvy world. Shiva, Ganesha’s father, is accompanied by Nandi, a bull, Ganesha’s mother Parvati has Dawon, a lion, and his brother Kartikeya has Parvani, a peacock. Vishnu famously has the man-eagle Garuda, while Brahma and his consort Saraswati each ride Hamsa, a swan.
Okay, so Hindu gods need cosmic chariots to perform their duties.
But a mouse? It’s like asking the Queen to drive around in a battered 15-year-old Mini.
Shouldn’t Ganesha be allocated something more majestic? A horse, to quickly explore large distances (and expansive ideas)? Maybe a fox, to enhance the god’s cunning nature? Even a humble robin would have been better, to signify the coming of Spring and, with the change of seasons, the likelihood for new optimistic beginnings?
We can credit the public relations masterminds who created Ganesha with coming up with the mouse, which first appeared around the 10th century, some five centuries after Ganesha made his first appearance. Certainly, the mouse is tiny and seemingly insignificant. But in symbolic terms the mouse is an inspired choice.
Ganesha’s mouse can be interpretated in many ways:
- It represents the “small” people whose needs and wishes have been overlooked by the main gods. Ganesha listens to every entreaty; he is an equal-opportunity wish-granter, an inspired creation of the Hindu marketing experts to position latecomer Ganesha as a populist god – Hey poor downtrodden farmer, Ganesha cares about you!
- The mouse represents unrestrained desire and consumption, human attributes which need to be kept under control.
- The mouse represents ego, and we need Ganesha to help us conquer our selfish mind with well-intentioned intellect.
- The mouse is a voracious pest that annihilates the grain crops of India. The Sanskrit word musika (mouse) is derived from the root mus (stealing, robbing). The media consultants charged with creating Ganesha’s persona perhaps felt that one way to appeal to the downtrodden farmers who felt overlooked by the celebrity gods such as Indra, Brahma and Vishnu, was to show that Ganesha could control the tiny pest that they fought every day. Win-win.
- Ganesha, being so large, easily takes care of the big problems in life. But what about the smaller, less conspicuous challenges people face? The mouse can burrow into tiny spaces where Ganesha cannot. The team of Ganesha and Musika need each other to clear away all obstacles.
* * *
While the mouse is Ganesha’s primary vehicle, he has other vahanas at his disposal. Depending on which of his eight incarnations he appears, Ganesha can be seen riding, or accompanied by, a peacock, a lion, Garuda, a parrot, a snake, or a scorpion. And often he is seen with a bandicoot rat, a slimmer, pointed-snout rodent that is an even more devastating pest of crops than the mouse.
Three mouse vahanas pay homage to Ganesha in this 19th-century Indian bronze statue in the author’s collection.
A mouse vahana adorns the sail (along with the om symbol) to guide Ganesha on a sailing voyage. This unusual contemporary piece is created with crushed semi-precious stones, and comes from Uttarakhand in northern India.
Even a hand-drawn mouse vahana is sufficient to assist Ganesha in this small 19th-century alabaster carving from Myanmar.
Background
Paul near the summit of Gunung Gamalama, Ternate, Indonesia
Paul Spencer Sochaczewski first went to Southeast Asia in 1969 with the United States Peace Corps, where he was assigned to assist rural teachers in Sarawak, a Malaysian state on the island of Borneo. He remained in Asia for some 20 years, working in advertising and journalism, and those experiences have informed his writing on a wide variety of Asian-themed topics and quests.
He has lived and worked in some 85 countries and written 16 books and some 600 articles for publications including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, BBC Wildlife, Travel and Leisure, and Reader’s Digest. His latest book, Searching for Ganesha, has been published to generous reviews. During the first week, the book has become an Amazon #1 bestseller in three categories – Asian Travel Photography, Private Museums and Collections, and Biographies in Hinduism. For more on Paul’s background please click here.