Place · Ashtavinayak Ganesha temple · India
Moreshwar, Baramati
Also known as Baramati, Baramati, Pune, Moreshwar, Moreshwar (Ganesha), Moreshwar — Morgaon, Morgaon, Pune
The Moreshwar Ganesha temple at Morgaon in Pune district, Maharashtra, 65 kilometres from Pune — the Adi-Ganesha ('first Ganesha') of the Ashtavinayak circuit of eight Ganesha pilgrimage temples around Pune. The temple's foundation is 10-century Rashtrakuta; the current structure is 17-century Peshwa-era. The deity Moreshwar ('peacock-vahana Ganesha') is a self-manifest trunk-right Ganesha riding a peacock — the distinctive peacock-vahana form that gives the temple its name. The temple is the start and end point of the traditional Ashtavinayak Yatra, performed in a canonical order over three to five days. The annual Bhadrapada Ganesha Chaturthi festival each August-September draws over 500,000 pilgrims. The temple is managed by the Shri Devasthan Trust. The Morgaon fort surrounds the temple.
- Function
- Sacred site & pilgrimage
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 18.276, 74.322
Connections (4)
- PilgrimageMoraya Gosāvi
Moraya Gosāvi walked from Chinchwad to Morgāv on the fourth of every month for most of a long life, and the tradition says that when he could no longer make the journey the image came to him. The Aṣṭavināyaka circuit's habit of starting and ending at Morgāv follows his practice.
- Pilgrimage order ofGāṇapatya tradition
Morgāv is the ādi-pīṭha of the Gāṇapatya tradition, the first seat, and the circuit of eight is the sect's geography written on the ground. The Gaṇeśa Purāṇa's claim that Gaṇeśa is the supreme reality rather than the remover of obstacles for other gods is what the eight shrines are there to assert.
- Companion in the same setChintamani, Pune
Morgāv and Theūr are the circuit's ritual and political poles: the ādi-pīṭha where the journey must begin and end, and the shrine a Peshwa made his own. Sixty kilometres apart, they mark the difference between what the tradition says the circuit is and what patronage made of it. The circuit is only counted complete if the pilgrim returns to Morgāv at the end, so Theūr's Peshwa grandeur is a stop and the plain ādi-pīṭha is the frame.
- Companion in the same setSiddhivinayak, Ahmednagar
Siddhaṭek is the only right-trunked image of the eight, which makes it the hardest to worship correctly and the most auspicious to reach, while Morgāv is where the journey has to begin and end. Between them they hold the circuit's two rules, one ritual and one geographic. A right-turned trunk is held to demand stricter observance from the worshipper, which is why Siddhaṭek's pradakshinā runs five kilometres around the whole hill.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Baramati”. Archaeological Survey of India and State Archaeology monument records, and the standard regional literature.
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