Buddhi: Ganesha's Race and the Moon's Curse

Wisdom over speed, and why we avert the Ganesh Chaturthi moon

Narada arrives at Kailasa with one fruit and one rule: only the wiser of Shiva's sons may eat it. Kartikeya leaps onto his peacock. Ganesha walks once around his parents and stops. The lesson reads that walk, then closes with the night the moon laughed at Ganesha and was cursed.

A Fruit on a Quiet Afternoon

It is afternoon on Mount Kailasa. The wind is light. Parvati is grinding sandalwood. Shiva is sitting in the half-open posture he keeps between meditation and the world. Their two sons are nearby. Kartikeya, the elder by some tellings, the warrior, lean and bright, polishing the head of his spear. Ganesha, the younger, round-bellied, elephant-faced, the boy who notices things, sitting on the floor watching a small ant carry a grain of rice across a stone slab.

Footsteps. The sage Narada walks up the path. He carries one thing in his hand: a small golden fruit. The fruit is the Jnana Phala, the fruit of knowledge, given to him by the gods. He has come to give it.

He bows, places the fruit between Shiva and Parvati, and sits down. Then, with the small smile Narada keeps for moments like this, he lays down a rule. "This fruit cannot be cut. It cannot be shared. Whoever eats it whole becomes complete in wisdom. There are two sons in this house. Only one can eat it. You must choose."

Parvati looks at the fruit. Then at her two boys. Both are watching now. The afternoon has changed shape.

She will not pick a favourite. She does not have one. So she does what a fair parent does. She turns the choice into a contest.

"Whoever circles the world and returns first will eat the fruit."

Two Different Ways of Being Fast

Kartikeya is on his feet before the sentence ends. He is the warrior son, born of Shiva's fire to defeat Tarakasura, the lord of the Kraunchadweepa mountains, the rider of the great peacock Paravani. He whistles. The peacock arrives. He swings into the saddle. The wings open. In the next instant he is a streak across the sky over the Himalayan ridges.

Ganesha looks up. He sees his brother already past the snow line. He looks at his own ride. He has a mooshika, a little mouse, named Krauncha. The mouse is small. Even on the mouse's best day, Ganesha would not catch a peacock.