Ganesha is the Indian lord of obstacles. He can remove them as well as placing them in one’s path. He holds an elephant goad in his upper right hand. In his lower right hand, he holds his broken right tusk, which according to various myths was lost in battle, used as a stylus, or as a projectile that he hurled at the moon when it ridiculed him for falling off his rat mount and bursting open his belly overstuffed with sweetmeats. He used a cobra associated with his father, the Hindu god Shiva, to tie his belly back together. As Ganesha is fond of eating, he holds a bunch of mangoes in his upper left hand and a sweetmeat in his lower left. Since he is shown with mangoes and gracefully dancing, Ganesha is here meant to portray a happy, spirited child. The Kannada inscription on the base states that the image was donated by Ramappa “in honor of the Lord,” for the sake of worship. This was likely used as a processional bronze (copper alloy) and originally had a separately cast aureole.

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• McGill, Forrest, editor. Beyond Bollywood: 2000 Years of Dance in the Arts of South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Himalayan Region. San Francisco, CA: Asian Art Museum, 2022.
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