The Encyclopedia of World Religions

Ganges River S 171

ally be apparent to everyone, including those who promulgated it. Gandhi’s method of nonviolence ultimately rested on his confidence in God not as a per son but as a force, which he especially liked to call not Love but Truth. In 1925 he wrote of this force “I do dimly perceive that whilst everything around me is ever-changing, ever-dying, there is underlying all that change a Living Power that is changeless, that holds all together, that creates, dissolves, and re-creates. . . . I see it as purely benevolent. For I can see that in the midst of death life persists, in the midst of untruth truth persists, in the midst of darkness light persists. Hence I gather that God is Life, Truth, Light. He is Love. He is the Supreme God.” SIGNIFICANCE In addition to profoundly shaping 20th-century India, Gandhi’s vision of nonviolence influenced leaders outside India, too. The best-known exam ple may be the American civil rights leader, Martin Luther K ING , Jr. Further reading: Louis Fischer, ed., The Essential Gandhi 2d ed. (New York: Vintage, 2002); Mohandas K. Gandhi, An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with the Truth (Boston: Beacon, 1966); Raghavan Iyer, The Moral and Political Thought of Mahatma Gandhi (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973); Stanley Wolpert, Gandhi’s Passion: The Life and Legacy of Mahatma Gandhi (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001). Ganesa Also called Ganapati; a popular Hindu ( see H INDUISM ) god easily recognizable from his elephant’s head, broken tusk, and pot belly. He is also associated with the mouse. Ganesa is said to be the son of the god S IVA or, rather, of Siva’s consort P ARVATI . One story about how Ganesa got his head tells that one day Siva came home after a long period of meditation alone. His way was barred by a son born in his absence, whom he did not recognize. In frustration, Siva decapitated the child. The mother was naturally

A statue of the elephant-headed Hindu god Ganesa (Getty Images)

upset, and Siva promised to make amends by giv ing the child the first head he saw. That happened to be the head of an elephant. Ganesa is revered as the remover of obstacles and lord of beginnings. Accordingly, he is invoked at the beginning of most ceremonial and important occasions. Hindus who do not engage in the sec tarian WORSHIP of a single god often worship five gods as a manifestation of the supreme. Ganesa is one of them.

Ganges River The most sacred river in India. It flows through the plains of north India from the Himalaya Mountains in the west to the Bay of