Thirty-two forms of Ganesha are mentioned frequently in devotional literature related to the Hindu god

Ganesha Ganesha ( sa, गणेश, ), also known as Ganapati, Vinayaka, and Pillaiyar, is one of the best-known and most worshipped deities in the Hindu pantheon and is the Supreme God in Ganapatya sect. His image is found throughout India. Hindu d ...

(Ganapati). The Ganesha-centric scripture ''

Mudgala Purana The Mudgala Purana (Sanskrit:; ) is a Hindu religious text dedicated to the Hindu deity Ganesha (). It is an that includes many stories and ritualistic elements relating to Ganesha. The Ganesha Purana and the Mudgala Purana are core scriptures f ...

'' is the first to list them. Detailed descriptions are included in the ''Shivanidhi'' portion of the 19th-century

Kannada Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...

Sritattvanidhi The ''Sritattvanidhi'' (, "The Illustrious Treasure of Realities") is a treatise written in the 19th century in Karnataka on the iconography and iconometry of divine figures in South India. One of its sections includes instructions for, and ill ...

''. There are also sculptural representations of these thirty-two forms in the temples at

Nanjangud Nanjangud, officially known as Nanjanagudu, is a town in the Mysuru district of Indian state of Karnataka. Nanjangud lies on the banks of the river Kapila (also called Kabini), 23 km from the city of Mysore. Nanjangud is famous for the S ...

and Chāmarājanagar (both in Mysore district,

Karnataka Karnataka (; ISO: , , also known as Karunāḍu) is a state in the southwestern region of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act. Originally known as Mysore State , it was renamed ''Karnat ...

), done about the same time as the paintings were done and also at the direction of the same monarch.Ramachandra Rao, p. vi. Each of the thirty-two illustrations is accompanied by a short Sanskrit meditation verse ('), written in Kannada script. The meditation verses list the attributes of each form. The text says that these meditation forms are from the ''Mudgala Purana''. In his review of how the iconographic forms of Ganapati shown in the Sritattvanidhi compare with those known from other sources, Martin-Dubost notes that the Sritattvanidhi is a recent text from South India, and while it includes many of Ganesha's forms that were known at that time in that area it does not describe earlier two-armed forms that existed from the 4th century, nor those with fourteen and twenty arms that appeared in Central India in the 9th and 10th centuries.Martin-Dubost, p. 120. Ramachandra Rao says that:

List

Notes

References

* * * * * * * * Contains color plate reproductions of the 32 Ganapati forms reproduced from the Sri Tattvanidhi. * * {{Ganesha Forms of Ganesha