Why Lord Ganesh was called Ekadantaya ?

Ganpati bappa morya !!!

Lord Ganesh , the son of the anant (infinite) Lord Shiv and Goddess Parvati (Also known as Adishakti ) is the one of the most popular god in India and specifically Hinduism.He is worshipped at start of any auspicious ceremonies before any other gods and local deities.He has been addressed by different names in mythology, one of them is “EKADANTAYA” (Person with single tusk).The straight reference behind this name can be derived from Lord Ganesh’s idol where he has one tusk broken out of the two.

There are many stories about how he landed up with a broken tusk .Out of which the most popular stories are related to his fight with God Parshuram and him writing the great indian epic “MAHABHARAT”.Let’s have a look on both of them .

LORD GANESH ‘S FIGHT WITH GOD PARSHURAM :God Parshuram had defeated the kshatriya with the blessing given to him by Lord Shiva .In order to express his gratitude , he started heading towards Mount Kailash to meet  Lord shiva .Upon reaching Kailash he was restricted from meeting Lord Shiva by Lord Ganesh .God Parshuram requested Lord Ganesh to allow him to meet Lord Shiva but he was adamant and did not budge,This triggered God Parshuram’s anger and resulted into a fight between them. At one moment God Parshuram throwed his Parshu(Axe) towards Lord ganesh and identifying that the parshu was gifted by his father to God Parshuram ,Lord Ganesh didn’t counteract as a sign of respect for his father and took the axe’s attack on one of his tusk which in turn broke his tusk .

WRITING  THE “MAHABHARAT”: Sage Ved Vyasa had approached Lord ganesh for writing the epic .Lord Ganesh had put forward a condition that the Sage should recite the verse without any break at one go else Lord Ganesh will not complete this task .In turn Sage Ved Vyas put forth a condition too that Lord Ganesh would write only when he understand the meaning of verse, which will allow him to take rest between the recitation.During the writing , there was a time when Lord Ganesh’s pen ink had dried up and to waste no time Lord ganesh broke one of his tusk and completed writing th epic.