your bridge home
Tales of the Gods
At dawn, somebody is saying twelve names in order. At noon they will say them again, and once more at dusk.
At dawn, somebody is saying twelve names in order. At noon they will say them again, and once more at dusk.
They have been doing it for a very long time, and the names have not changed.
No god in the tradition carries as many names as Ganesha, and that follows directly from what he does.
He is the one you speak to before anything begins. A journey. An exam. A shop opening. A wedding. A house going up.
Everybody arrives wanting something different, obstacles gone, wisdom, money, a door open rather than shut, and over centuries every one of those arrivals left a name behind.
Out of all of them, one set of twelve stayed in daily use.
They are the Dwadasha Nama, credited to the sage Narada in the Narada Purana, and they are recited together as one piece rather than treated as separate titles.
The rest of this story, read aloud, and a new one every day.