Variations on the Elephantine Theme: Jyeṣṭhā-Vināyakī, from Independent Goddess to Gaṇeśa’s Female Form

An Indian female deity characterised by an elephant face is usually identified with Gaṇeśa’s female form. She is known as Vināyakī, Gaṇeśanī, Gaṇeśvarī, Gajānanā, and with numerous other epithets. However, very early on, this little-studied elephant-faced figure appears as an independent, albeit minor, divinity in her own right. The earliest material attestations of this figure date from the first centuries BCE-CE and come from Rairh (Rajasthan) and Mathura. Particularly significant appear to be the connections with the goddess Jyeṣṭhā or Alakṣmī, who, in some texts, is described as elephant-faced and as riding a donkey; she traditionally represents misfortune and disease. The autonomous character of Vināyakī, detached from the orbit of Gaṇeśa, seems to emerge particularly in the Tantric context. After the 8th century, she sometimes features as one of the Eight Mothers and is often included in groups of yoginīs in both Vidyāpīṭha (7th-8th century) and Kaula (post-10th century) scriptures. The yoginīs’ pantheons of these textual traditions find a degree of correspondence in different extant pre-11thcentury yoginī temples. Indeed, an elephant-faced female sculpture is enshrined in the yoginī temples of Hirapur and Ranipur-Jharial in Odisha and of Bheraghat in Madhya Pradesh. Furthermore, various sculptural collections of yoginīs also include such a figure. This contribution, adducing illustrative rather than exhaustive evidence, outlines the formation and development of this elephant-faced female figure. Relevant textual passages are analysed, from the earliest attestation in the Baudhāyanagṛhyaśesạsūtra to the subsequent purāṇic inflections right up to some significant appearances in Śaiva tantric literature. Hence, figurative representations of salient interest dating from the 1st century BCE up to the 11th century are listed and briefly described. In the concluding section, I try to interpret texts and images, reading them in parallel, proposing a tentative outline of the different phases in the religious-historical evolution of Vināyakī, and highlighting the dynamics that led to the interpretation of the figure as the female form of Gaṇeśa.