Journey
Ashtavināyaka — the eight Ganesha temples
Eight svayambhu Gaṇeśa shrines within about two hundred kilometres of Pune, done as one circuit that begins and ends at Morgāv. None of the images is carved: each is a rock the tradition says took the form itself, so the trunks turn different ways and no two look alike. The Peshwas rebuilt most of them in the eighteenth century.
Stops (8)
- Moreshwar, Baramati · Mayūreśwar at Morgāv — where the circuit starts and ends
The ādi-pīṭha, on the Karhā at Morgāv in Baramati taluka, where Gaṇeśa is said to have ridden a peacock to kill the demon Sindhu. The circuit is only complete if you return here. The temple has a Bahmani-era wall with four minaret-like corners, built to look like a mosque so it would be passed over.
- Siddhivinayak, Ahmednagar · Siddhivināyak at Siddhaṭek — the trunk that turns right
The only one of the eight whose trunk curves to the right, which in Maharashtrian practice makes it the strictest to worship and the most auspicious. On a hillock by the Bhīmā in Ahmednagar district. Ahilyabai Holkar built the present sanctum; the pradakshinā runs round the whole hill, some five kilometres.
- Ballaleshwar, Raigad · Ballāleśwar at Pāli — named for the devotee, not the god
The only Aṣṭavināyaka to carry a devotee's name: Ballāl, a merchant's son beaten by villagers for neglecting work to worship, whose persistence the god rewarded by taking his name. The temple is built so that the sun falls on the image at the winter solstice, and stands between two forts in the Konkan hills.
- Varadavinayak, Raigad · Varadavināyak at Mahāḍ — the lamp that has not gone out
In Raigad district, where the lamp in the sanctum is said to have burned continuously since 1892. This is the one of the eight where visitors may enter the sanctum and touch the image themselves, without a priest between — unusual enough in Maharashtra to be the thing people come for.
- Chintamani, Pune · Chintāmani at Theūr — the Peshwa's own shrine
Where Gaṇeśa recovered the Chintāmani jewel, at the meeting of the Mulā, Muthā and Bhīmā. Mādhavrāo I made it his refuge, rebuilt its hall, and died there of tuberculosis in 1772 at twenty-seven; his wife Ramābāī committed sati beside him. A Peshwa's private devotion is why this is the most built-up of the eight.
- Girijatmaj, Junnar · Girijātmaj at Leṇyādri — Gaṇeśa in a Buddhist cave
The only Aṣṭavināyaka not in a temple: cave eight of a Buddhist group of thirty cut into the hill above Junnar in the first centuries CE, reoccupied later for Gaṇeśa. Two hundred and eighty-three steps climb to it. The hall has no supporting pillar, being cut from the living rock, and the image faces north.
- Vighnahar, Junnar · Vighnahar at Ozar — the shrine with the gilded spire
On the Kukadi near Junnar, where Gaṇeśa subdued the demon Vighnāsura and let him keep his name on condition he stayed away from the god's devotees. Chimāji Appā gilded the spire with gold taken at Vasai from the Portuguese in 1739, so a Konkan campaign paid for the roof.
- Mahaganapati, Ahmednagar · Mahāgaṇapati at Rāñjaṇgāv — the ten-trunked form
The largest and most powerful of the eight, on the Pune–Ahmednagar road, where Śiva is said to have worshipped Gaṇeśa before facing Tripurāsura. The visible image is not the original: a ten-trunked, twenty-armed Mahotkat is said to lie in a vault beneath it. The sanctum is aligned so the sun strikes the image at the equinoxes.