Manmatha and Gaṇeśa at Janasthāna

This narrative comes from the Upāsanā Khaṇḍa of the Gaṇeśa Purāṇa. Bhagavān Śiva burned Manmatha, the deva of desire, to ash with his third eye. Śiva then told Manmatha to worship Gaṇeśa. Manmatha did a hundred years of tapas (austerity) with his wife Ratī at Janasthāna, in the Daṇḍakāraṇya forest, and he chanted the Ekākshari Gaṇeśa mantra. Gaṇeśa appeared in a ten-armed form and gave him his prayers.

The burning of Manmatha

The devas wanted to wake Bhagavān Śiva from his samādhi (deep meditation) so that the divine son who alone could destroy Tārakāsura might be born. They persuaded Manmatha to shoot his flower-arrows at Śiva. For Manmatha himself the result was terrible. Śiva’s samādhi was broken for a moment. He turned his third eye on the unseen archer, and the fire from that eye turned Manmatha to ash in one instant.

Manmatha was gone. His body was dissolved. His wife Ratī wept without comfort. The devas, who had asked Manmatha to do this and had known the danger, were themselves in distress. When Śiva saw why his samādhi had been disturbed, his anger cooled into compassion. He told Ratī that Manmatha would be known as Manobhava, “born in the mind”, present whenever he was thought of. In a future age he would be born as Pradyumna, the son of Kṛshṇa, and Ratī would be joined to him again as Māyāvatī. (Upāsanā Khaṇḍa, Chapter 88)

Śiva sends Manmatha to Gaṇeśa

Ratī accepted Śiva’s comfort about the future birth, but she asked for Manmatha’s form to be given back now. Śiva was moved by her plea. Manmatha now lived without a body, as pure mind-energy. Śiva told him to worship Gaṇeśa with the Ekākshari mantra. He named Janasthāna, in the Daṇḍakāraṇya forest, as the holy place for this worship. (Upāsanā Khaṇḍa, Chapter 88)

The hundred years of tapas at Janasthāna

Manmatha went to Janasthāna, the forest of Daṇḍakāraṇya. In later times this was the place of Rāma’s exile and of the meeting between Śūrpaṇakhā and Lakshmaṇa. In this old and powerful forest Manmatha began his tapas in a holy grove. Ratī was with him. She too was in grief, and her love for him was itself a kind of tapas.

For a hundred years Manmatha chanted the Ekākshari Gaṇeśa mantra without a break, with his whole mind turned inward. He had no body, but the energy of his tapas was real, and it grew. The forest was filled with the power gathered by this hundred years of sādhana (spiritual practice). (Upāsanā Khaṇḍa, Chapter 89)

Gaṇeśa appears in his ten-armed form

At the end of the hundred years, Gaṇeśa appeared before Manmatha and Ratī in a splendid ten-armed form, blazing with divine light. Manmatha had no body, but he saw this vision through the fine senses of his mind. He offered all his devotion and a heartfelt stotra (hymn of praise). In it he spoke of Gaṇeśa as the source of all kāma (desire) in the cosmos, the one whose will moves all creation toward its goals.

Gaṇeśa was very pleased with the purity and sincerity of Manmatha’s worship, which came from a time of great loss and shame. He spoke to Manmatha with great affection. (Upāsanā Khaṇḍa, Chapter 89)

The four varas

Gaṇeśa gave Manmatha four supreme varas (boons).

  1. Rebirth as Pradyumna. Manmatha would take a body in the age of Bhagavān Kṛshṇa, born as Kṛshṇa’s son, in a glorious form both human and divine. Ratī would be born as Māyāvatī, and they would be husband and wife again.
  2. Honour in all the worlds. He would be praised and worshipped in all the worlds as the deva of desire and beauty, and every being able to love would acknowledge his power.
  3. The five natural weapons. The aids to attraction would serve as his weapons: the scent of flowers, the beauty of moonlight, the sound of humming bees, the coolness of sandalwood, and the sweetness of water-music. These five were made holy as the weapons of Manmatha, to be used in his service of desire and love.
  4. Gaṇeśa always near. Gaṇeśa said that he would always be near Manmatha, because kāma (desire), when it is turned rightly toward Bhagavān Gaṇeśa, cannot be separated from the maṅgala (auspiciousness) that Gaṇeśa is.

(Upāsanā Khaṇḍa, Chapter 89)

The Mahotkaṭa mūrti at Janasthāna

In thanks and devotion, Manmatha set up a holy mūrti (image) of Gaṇeśa in the grove of his tapas, under the name Mahotkaṭa, “the supremely powerful, the immensely great”. The name speaks of the great splendour of the ten-armed form that had appeared to him. He built a golden shrine with a maṇḍapa (pillared hall) and decorated it with fitting arrangements.

The grove at Janasthāna became a famous tīrtha (holy place), Janasthāna-tīrtha. Pilgrims came there to seek Gaṇeśa’s grace in matters of love, reunion and restoration. Later, Rāma spent time there during his exile in Daṇḍakāraṇya. There Lakshmaṇa cut off the nose of Śūrpaṇakhā, which began the chain of events that led to the central conflict of the Rāmāyaṇa. (Upāsanā Khaṇḍa, Chapter 89)

Sources

  • Gaṇeśa Purāṇa, Upāsanā Khaṇḍa, Chapters 88–89