Story of Broken Tusk of Ganesha!

Have you ever looked at an image or idol of Lord Ganesha and wondered why is he always portrayed with a broken tusk? This is the reason why he is also referred to as Ekdantaya, which means — with one tooth.

Once Lord Shiva decided to go into a state of deep meditation and instructed his son Ganesha to stand at the entrance and not let anyone enter the chamber of Shiva. This was to ensure Shiva can perform his meditation in complete isolation without any disturbance. Ganesha agreed and stood on guard at the door not letting anyone inside the house.

Meanwhile Parshuram (an incarnation of Vishnu) had just completed avenging his father’s death by massacring the entire Kshatriya race from earth. He decided to pay homage to Shiva on completion of his vow. When he arrived at mount Kailasha which is the abode of Shiva, he saw Nandi, Ganas, Pishachas standing outside the entrance. He wondered why was everyone waiting outside as he was not aware that Ganesha had barred everyone from going inside as per Shiva’s order. Parshuram continued on his way until he was blocked by Ganesha with the warning that he can not go inside. Parshuram took it as a personal offence and demanded that Ganesha let him pass as Shiva was his Ishta- Deva and he wanted to meet him right away. When Ganesha did not relent Parshuram lost his temper and started firing his weapons him. He was shocked that Ganesha countered all his weapons without showing any signs of relenting. Getting frustrated he took out his strongest celestial weapon Parshu (battle axe) which was granted to him as a boon by Shiva himself and led to him being called Parshu-Ram.

The Parshu struck Ganesh on his face, striking off one of his trunks in the process. Ganesha gave out a loud cry with the severe pain he experienced. This broke the meditation of Shiva and he immediately stepped out to check what had occurred to cause so much agony to Ganesha. Once he arrived outside he realized what had happened and proceeded to admonish Parshuram, telling him that Ganesha is his son and was just fallowing the orders of Shiva. He reprimanded him that he needs to control his anger and temper. He continued to say that in his arrogance he did not realize that Ganesha is 100 times more powerful than Parshuram and had the strength to overpower him very easily. If he wanted he could have easily blocked the Parshu as well, but as he knew it was the weapon presented by his father Shiva himself he did not stop it. He next turned to Ganesha and started praising his calm nature. He said, Ganesha you are truly the most sensible and kind hearted of all. Despite being more powerful and being continuously attacked you remained calm and did not retaliate. I hereby grant you the boon that no Yajna (fire worship) or Pooja (ritual worship) will be considered complete unless they start with a hymn or shloka in your praise.

Parshuram realized his mistake and apologized profusely for him mistake and told Ganesha that his broken tusk will not be futile, and will be used to write the greatest epic ever. This was the incident which led to Mahabharata being dictated to Ganesha by Sage Vyasa and Ganesha writing down the complete epic with his broken tusk.

This is one of the most popular stories associated with tusk of Ganesh. However there is another popular version which mentions that Ganesha himself broke his tusk so he could help VedVyas rishi in compiling the Mahabharta epic in one continuous go without taking any break. He had used his tusk to write the epic.