The Ganesa Purana - Krida Khanda (Set of 2 Books)

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The second book of the GnP must be read as a complement to the first book, the Upasanakhanda. Where the first introduces the mythology of Ganesa by focussing on how a person becomes his devotee and the subsequent worship this requires, the second takes a more direct theological aim. It offers a comprehensive set of narratives dealing with the god's adventures in the world and how he cheats certain classes of people, saves others, reveals himself to yet a third category and provokes a fourth. These adventures are placed together and organized through the application of a number of thematic frames exercizing control over a diverse range of content, which despite its diversity, has a certain uniformity about it. Of these the avatara frame is one of the most important and easily recognized, and conveys a kind of a universal ambience to the god's activities. Its ubiquity in the Krkh means that the Uki can be read as focusing on the individual in relation to Gaņesa, whereas the Krth focuses on the triple-world in relation to him. And to extend this further, the majority of myths in the Ukh are in part built around the motif of the consequences of an individual's failure to worship Ganesa first before any undertaking. This motif is far less common in the Krkh, without, however, being totally absent.

In the GN and Wai editions of the GnP, the second khanda is called Uttarakhande, in contrast with the Purvakhanda, the alternative name for the Upasanakhanda. However, in the colophons the title haphazardly alternates between Krida and Uttarakhanda. Yet irrespective of whether the word lila or Krida is used, the reader/hearer is never allowed to lose sight of the games being depicted in the myths populating the Krkh. As both avatara and boy, Gaņesa is depicted in game playing activities from the beginning to the end of the GnP, and even when the austere Visvarupa forms of the god are described at so many spots in the text, the idea of play is present and, like the BhagP, the Krkh can be read as a meditation on lila.