The Tantric Worship of Mahaganapati: According to the Nityotsava and Other Texts (2 Parts: Bound in One)

Email

Whatsapp

Facebook

Pinterest

Twitter

Copy link

This volume documents the worship of Mahaganapati, a ten-armed form of Ganapati Ganesa with a consort (sakti), according to four Tantric texts. Part I presents the Sanskrit text and an English translation together with commentary on chapter 2 of the Nityotsava, a work written by Jagannatha Pandita in 1745. The author based his work on the Parasuramakalpasutra, an anonymous 16 or 17th-century text probably composed in South India. The Parasuramakalpasutra and the Nityotsava are among the best-known and most respected works of the Srividya school of Hindu Tantra in contemporary India, and studied by many practitioners.
Part II of this book focuses on three Tantric texts. The first subsection presents the Sanskrit text and a translation of a section of chapter 17 from the 12-century Prapancasara. The second subsection provides an analysis and detailed summary of the section on Mahaganapati found in chapter 32 of the Srividyamavatantra. The last section offers the Sanskrit text and a translation of the Vallabhesa Upanisad, a Tantric Upanisad related to the worship of Mahaganapati, who is referred to by the name Vallabhesa, the Lord of Vallabha (or Siddhalakṣmi, the consort of Mahaganapati).

Gudrun Buhnemann is a Professor of Sanskrit and Indic Religions in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Wisconsin Madison, USA She has published extensively on South Asian (especially Tantric) iconography and ritual. Her recent books include The Iconography of Hindu Tantric Deities (First Indian edition, revised, as a single volume, Aditya Prakashan, 2016).

This volume documents the worship of Mahaganapati, a ten-armed form of Ganapati/Ganesa with a consort (sakti), according to four Tantric texts. Part I presents the Sanskrit text and an English translation together with commentary on chapter 2 of the Nityotsava, a work written by Jagannatha Pandita in 1745. The author, whose initiation (dikṣa) name was Umanandanatha, was a Brahmin from Maharastra who lived at the royal court in Tanjore. He based his work on the Parasuramakalpasutra, an anonymous 16th- or 17th-century text probably composed in South India. The Parasuramakalpasutra' and the Nityotsava are among the best-known and most respected works of the Srividya school of Hindu Tantra in contemporary India, and studied by many practitioners.
Part I is based on my book The Worship of Mahaganapati According to the Nityotsava, published in 1988 by the Institut fur Indologie, Wichtrach (Switzerland). Its first Indian edition (now out of print) was published by Shailesh Gupta for Kant Publications, Delhi, in 2003. It provided a welcome opportunity to make some minor corrections and have some of the photographs included in the book reproduced in colour.