Who Broke the Tusk of Ganesha? What does it signify?

Introduction of Parashuram

The 6th incarnation of Lord Vishnu took birth in the house of Saptarishi Jamtagni and his wife Renuka. They gave him the name, Ram.

Ram was the disciple of Lord Shiva who taught him various fighting skills. Shiva also offered him several divine weapons along with a Parashu and a mighty bow, Vijay, which he passed on to his brave disciple, Karna. Because of this Parashu, he got famous with the name, Parashuram.

Read Complete Story of Lord Shiva from Creation of World till birth of Kshem and Labh in single article.

Rishi Jamtagni and Renuka were very kind and used to spend their time in charity and feeding the people. To encourage their good acts, Indra offered them the divine Kamdhenu cow. It was the specialty of Kamdhenu that the food prepared from her milk could feed any number of people without being spent.

King Kartaveer tried to snatch Kamdhenu from Jamtagni which he opposed and got killed. Renuka also died there with her husband.

When Parashuram came and saw the dead bodies of his parents, he got furious and took pledge to end the warrior caste from earth.

He went to the palace of Kartaveer and killed all the soldiers along with the king with his parashu. Later he went on his quest of killing all the warriors.

This way he slayed the whole warrior caste of earth, 21 times and then declared to never lift his parashu again.

Parashuram is one of the few peoples who is immortal.

Read the story of Narsimha avatar of Lord Vishnu.

Parashuram Broke Ganesha’s Tusk

Once Parashuram came to meet Shiva but he was stopped by Ganesha and Kartikeya. Furious Parashuram attacked Ganesha with his Parashu. Since the Parashu was given by Shiva, so Ganesha didn’t want to disrespect it by blocking. Hence he took the strike on his tusk. From the strike of Parashu, his tusk broke down.

Significance of Broken Tusk

Shiva appeared and consoled everybody. He enlightened everybody with the significance of one broken tusk. It signifies that intelligence should always be a little less than devotion. Otherwise people will start questioning the existence of God and will stuck in the complexities generated from their questions and in seeking answers of those.

Ganesha Wrote Mahabharata

Parashuram blessed Ganesha that one day his broken tusk will be of enormous importance for this world and He will be called Ekdanta.

Later when Ved Vyas wanted to write Mahabharata, he asked Ganesha to write what he spoke. He was speaking so fast that no quill was able to handle the writing speed. Then Ganesha used his broken tusk to write Mahabharata.

You may also like

Why Shiva cut the head of Ganesha and used elephant head only?