Tantric Forms of Ganesa

Although the number of publications dealing with Ganesha is not insignificant, few take original Sanskrit texts into consideration. The Tantric aspects of the deity have certainly been studied too little. This book contributes to our knowledge of this less familiar side of Ganesha. It describes his forms according to the Vidyarnavatantra, a large compilation on mantrashastra attributed to Vidyaranya Yati and compiled around the seventeenth century. This text gives the iconographic peculiarities, mantras, and yantras of fourteen forms of Ganesha as well as instructions for the ritual application of the mantras.