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Ganapatya

Beliefs[edit]
The worship of Ganesha is considered complementary with the worship of other deities. Hindus of all sects begin prayers, important undertakings, and religious ceremonies with an invocation of Ganesha, because of Ganesha's role as the god of beginnings. But although most Hindu sects do revere Ganesha, the Ganapatya sect goes further than that, and declares Ganesha to be the supreme being. Ganapatya is one of the five principal Hindu sects which focus on a particular deity, alongside Shaivism, focussed on Shiva, Shaktism, focussed on Shakti, Vaishnavism, focused on Vishnu, and Saura, focussed on Surya. While Ganapatya is not as large a sect as the other four, it still has been influential.[citation needed] There is also the Smartism sect, which follows Advaita philosophy and practices the "worship of the five forms" (pañcāyatana pūjā) system, popularized by Śaṅkarācārya. In this system, the five deities Ganesha, Vishnu, Shiva, Devī, and Sūrya are viewed as five equal forms of one Nirguna Brahman.

History[edit]
Ganapati has been worshipped as part of Shaivism since at least the fifth century. A specific Ganapatya sect probably began to appear between the sixth and ninth centuries: six sects are mentioned in the Sankara digvijaya (life of Adi Shankara) by Anandigiri. It reached a high point about the tenth century, and built temples dedicated to Ganesha, the largest of which is the Ucchi Pillayar Koil (the Columns Hall of a Thousand Pillars), on the Rock Fort of Tiruchirapalli in Tamil Nadu. Ganesha is worshipped as the Supreme Being (Para Brahman) in this sect. Being the chief deity in this form of Hinduism, he is known by the epithet Parameshwara (Supreme God), which is normally reserved for Shiva.

Moraya Gosavi[edit]
The tradition gained additional significance during the 17th century throughs Morya Gosavi. A ccording to one source, he found an idol of Ganapati not made by human hands, and built the Moragao temple near Pune in the 14th century.[citation needed] According to another, he experienced visions of Ganapati at the Morgaon shrine, and was entombed alive (jeeva samadhi) in 1651, in a Ganesha temple at his birthplace in Chinchwad. He is purported to have experienced visions, that "he himself, and those following in his lineage, would become vehicles for the incarnation of the god"[CITE]

Following him, the Ganapatya sect became prominent between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries in Maharashtra in south western India, centering on Cinchwad. Its centre is still among high-caste Hindus in the Marathi-speaking Maharashtra, and it is important in the rest of South India. Devotees hold an annual pilgrimage between Chinchwad and Moragao.

The Sect marks include a red circle on the forehead, or the brands of an elephant face and tusk on the shoulders.

THIngy

The collective name given to members of bhakti sects who worship Gaṇeśa as the accessible embodiment of brahman (neut.), and so view him alone as the supreme deity. By the 10th century ce a number of such groups were sufficiently distinct from their Śaiva parentage to have established their own (Śaiva-derived) ritual practices and iconographies. Evidence of the sects' continued development can be found in the Gaṇeśa and Mudgala Purāṇas(12th and 14th centuries respectively), which, with the Vedas, became the canonical texts of the later tradition. The modern Gāṇapatya cult has its origins in 17th-century Maharashtra, thanks to the influence of the South Indian teacher, Morayā Gosāvi. As the result of a series of visions of Gaṇeśa at Morogoan near Pune, he came to believe that he himself, and those following in his lineage, would become vehicles for the incarnation of the god. Subsequently, Morayā underwent jīvansamādhi—‘living entombment’—in the village of Cincvad (also near Pune), which thereafter became the headquarters for the sect. Under the patronage of the local rulers, the Marāṭhās, the Gāṇapatya sect (which now also worshipped Morayā Gosāvi and his successors) continued to flourish among the higher caste Hindus of Maharashtra and South India into the 19th century. After a period of quiescence under British rule, its activities have revived. This is particularly evident in the numbers of devotees undertaking the pilgrimage to the āṣṭavināyakas, the ‘eight Gaṇeśas’—forms of the deity established in eight temples in the Pune area. These include Gaṇeśa as Mayureśvara (‘lord of peacocks’) at the Morogoan shrine, which is also the twice-yearly destination of the Cicvad Gaṇeśa image, carried there in a processional pilgrimage by its priests and devotees.

Kali edit
Her most well-known appearance is on the battlefield in the sixth century Devi Mahatmyam. The deity of the first chapter of Devi Mahatmyam is Mahakali, who appears from the body of sleeping Vishnu as goddess Yoga Nidra to wake him up in order to protect Brahma and the World from two demons, Madhu and Kaitabha. When Vishnu woke up he started a war against the two demons. After a long battle with Lord Vishnu when the two demons were undefeated Mahakali took the form of Mahamaya to enchant the two asuras. When Madhu and Kaitabha were enchanted by Mahakali, but Vishnu killed them.