Criticism in an early stage is really sad news because a lot of hard work and love
goes into the making of these brilliant masterpieces of games from
Naughty Dog. As a long time reader of ancient mythological stories and as a passionate gamer, I'm quite happy about how they have revealed the origin of the legendary Tusk of Ganesh so far in their upcoming game, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy.
It can be noted that the idols and pictorial representations of Ganesh,
the elephant faced deity, are all generally shown to have a single tusk, while the other
is shown broken.
There are some completely different legendary stories about how
Ganesh lost his tusk:
The most popular story as to how Ganesh
lost his tusk is as follows:
1. Vyās and Ganesh
In the first part of the huge epic
Mahabharat, it is written that
the sage Vyās asked Ganesh to transcribe
his compositions as soon as he dictated them to him. Ganesh agreed, but only on
the condition that Vyās recite them uninterrupted, without pausing. The sage,
in his turn, posed the condition that Ganesh would not only have to write, but
would have to understand everything that he heard before writing it down. In
this way, Vyāsa might recuperate a bit from his continuous talking by simply
reciting a difficult verse which Ganesh could not immediately understand. The
dictation began, but in the haste of writing, Ganesh's feather pen broke off.
To proceed transcribing without interruption, Ganesh broke off one of his own
tusks and started using it as a pen, permitting him to keep his word. This
symbolically explains that any amount of sacrifice isn't sufficient enough to
gain knowledge.
2. Parshuraam and Ganesh
Brahmanda Purana has a completely different story for the origin of Ganesh's
broken tusk. It seems once, Parshuraam went to Mount Kailash
to see Shiva. Shiva was at that time
asleep. Ganesh , who was guarding the room of Shiva, did not allow Parshuraam
inside.
Parshuraam, an ardent devotee of Shiva, was furious. A battle ensued between Ganesh and
Parshuraam and in this battle, Ganesh lost one of his tusks because of the axe
of Parshuraam which had been gifted to him by Shiva.
3. The Moon and Ganesh
There is yet another story connecting the
moon to the loss of one tusk of Ganesh. This is as follows: Once on a Vinayaka Chaturthi, Ganesh got
a very large offering of very tempting Modaks. He ate all that was offered and being unable to walk with a heavy
belly, mounted on his mouse. Suddenly a snake appeared from the forest. The
mouse on whom, Ganesh was riding was terrified at the sight of a snake and
started running away. Naturally Ganesh fell
and his belly broke slightly. Not loosing his presence of mind Ganesh
caught hold of the snake and tied his belly tightly.Chandra(the moon), who was seeing all
this laughed at Ganesh. The short tempered Ganesh became very angry, broke one
of his tusks and threw it at the moon.
The Moon broke in to pieces. Ganesh also cursed
the moon, that, he would become a dark globe within 15 days, daily loosing one
crescent and whosoever sees him on a Chaturthi day(Fourth day of the waning
moon) would be laughed at. Later, Lord Shiva brokered a peace between Ganesh
and the moon. He said the moon will get reduced to dark as per Ganesh's curse
and later regain his brilliance in another 15 days.
There is yet another story about the tusk of Ganesh. It can be found here.
Naughty Dog have chosen the 2nd story
for the game...
 |
| Battle between Parshuraam and Ganesh shown in Uncharted: The Lost Legacy Trailer | E3 2017 |
Its the trail of this legend that Chloe Frazer and Nadine Ross
follow in the game's story campaign...which is perfectly fine considering the
action and cinematic orientation of Uncharted games.
 |
| Bhargava is the original name of Parshuraam and Skanda is another name of Kartikeya, Ganesh's elder brother. |
I hope the current work on the game progresses as planned and mesmerizes the fans on August 22, 2017 😊!
