Place · Ashtavinayak Ganesha temple · India
Mahaganapati, Ahmednagar
Also known as Ahmednagar, Mahaganapati, Mahaganapati (Ranjangaon), Mahaganapati — Ranjangaon, Ranjangaon
The Mahaganapati temple at Ranjangaon in Pune district, Maharashtra, 50 kilometres from Pune — the largest of the eight Ashtavinayak Ganesha temples. The deity Mahaganapati is a distinctive ten-trunked form of Ganesha with 20 hands — unique among Indian Ganesha iconography. The temple's foundation legend holds that Shiva worshipped Ganesha at this spot before his battle with the demon Tripurasura. The current structure is 10-century Rashtrakuta foundation with major 1790 Peshwa Madhavrao II-era additions. The temple's gold-plated main shikhara is one of two gold-plated Ashtavinayak shikharas (with Vighnahar at Ozar). The sanctum is designed so the sun's rays fall directly on the deity between 1-5 October each year. The annual Bhadrapada Ganesha Chaturthi festival each August-September draws over 300,000 pilgrims.
- Function
- Sacred site & pilgrimage
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 18.785, 74.386
Connections (2)
- Companion in the same setVighnahar, Junnar
Rāñjaṇgāv and Ozar are the northern arc of the circuit, on the Ahmednagar road and the Kukadi. Both are equinox- or solstice-aligned so the sun reaches the image on fixed days — the same trick as Modherā and Konārk, done at village scale by eighteenth-century masons. Ozar's spire was gilded with gold Chimāji Appā took at Vasai from the Portuguese in 1739, so a Konkan siege paid for a roof on the Kukadi.
- Site adjacencySiddhivinayak, Ahmednagar
Mahaganapati and Siddhivinayak are two of the Ashtavinayak Ganesha shrines of the Pune-Ahmednagar region, sitting as separate temple villages a short drive apart; they are neighbouring stations on the same pilgrim circuit rather than one inside the other.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Mahaganapati”. Archaeological Survey of India and State Archaeology monument records, and the standard regional literature.
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