Portrayal of Indian Culture, The Tusk of Ganesh and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy

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.

Recently there was this article about the portrayal of Hinduism in the game.

Considering all those distinct legendary origins, the exact "accuracy" is just not possible. The E3 Expo 2017 presentation speaks for itself  featuring the Flute, the Violin, the Tabla, the Harmonium and the Sitar which made it even more gorgeous and an immersive way to get welcomed with the new trailer at the Sony Press Conference, E3 2017! Doesn't this depict utmost love and "respect" towards Indian culture? Chloe literally mentioned "the great battle in which Ganesh lost his tusk" in the above trailer which is clearly audible. Isn't this expression respect enough?  Here's the excerpt about the same from the Brahmanda Purana translated from Sanskrit as described above in the 2nd story in this article:

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 😊!