Vinayaki

Vinayaki (Vināyakī) is an elephant-headed Hindu goddess. Her mythology and iconography are not clearly defined. Little is told about her in Hindu scriptures and very few images of this deity exist. Due to her elephantine features, the goddess is generally associated with the elephant-headed god of wisdom, Ganesha. She does not have a consistent name and is known by various names, Stri Ganesha ("female Ganesha"), Vainayaki, Gajananā ("elephant-faced"), Vighneshvari ("Mistress of the remover of obstacles") and Ganeshani, all of them being feminine forms of Ganesha's epithets Vinayaka, Gajanana, Vighneshvara and Ganesha itself. These identifications have resulted in her being assumed as the shakti - feminine form of Ganesha. Vinayaki is sometimes also seen as the part of the sixty-four yoginis or the matrika goddesses. However, scholar Krishan believes that Vinayaki is an early elephant-headed matrikas, the Brahmanical shakti of Ganesha, and the Tantric yogini are three distinct goddesses. In the Jain and Buddhist traditions, Vinayaki is an independent goddess. In Buddhist works, she is called Ganapatihridaya ("heart of Ganesha"). The earliest known elephant-headed goddess figure is found in Rairh, Rajasthan. It is a mutilated terracotta plaque dated from the first century BCE to the first century CE. The goddess is elephant-faced with the trunk turning to the right and has two hands. As the emblems in her hands and other features are eroded, a clear identification of the goddess is not possible. Other elephant-headed sculptures of the goddess are found from the tenth century onwards. One of the most famous sculptures of Vinayaki is as the forty-first yogini in the Chausath Yogini Temple, Bhedaghat, Madhya Pradesh. The goddess is called Sri-Aingini here. Here, the goddess's bent left leg is supported by an elephant-headed male, presumably Ganesha who is seated at her feet. A rare metal sculpture of Vinayaki is found in Chitrapur Math, Shirali. She is full-breasted, but slender, unlike Ganesha.