Prayers
Arranged by what a person actually carries on a given day. Each has a prayer in plain words, and where a traditional verse belongs with it, the verse is given in full.
Prayers in plain words were written for this site. They are devotional, not scriptural, and are never presented as traditional verses.
The complete prayer
A personal prayer in plain words. It is not a traditional verse and is not offered as one.
O Ganapathi, embodiment of great intelligence and guide of every worthy action, ride upon the mouse of desire and direct its energy towards dharma.
Purify my intelligence and steady my mind. Grant me discernment, humility, courage and the strength to complete my responsibilities.
Give me patience to listen, firmness in action and equanimity in both success and failure. Give me the inner capacity to accept and digest every experience.
Grant me wisdom when obstacles appear and clearly reveal the right path. By Your grace, may I complete whatever worthy work I begin.
May my desires remain under my direction; may I never become their servant. May my intelligence remain established in dharma.
O Ganapathi, be the Guru within me.
One passage at a time, full screen. Nothing plays on its own.
By purpose
Ganapathi is remembered at the threshold of things. The point of the pause is not to secure an outcome; it is to begin awake.
Ganapathi, I am about to begin. Let me know clearly what I am beginning and why. Let this work be worth the hours it will take, and let me give it my whole attention while I am in it.
When there is no shortage of options and no ability to see which one is true.
Ganapathi, my mind is crowded. Narrow it. Show me what is necessary and let the rest wait. Let me tell the urgent from the important, and choose the important.
Not a request for the difficulty to be taken away, but for the understanding to meet it rightly.
Ganapathi, something stands in the way. Show me whether it stands in the purpose or only in the path I chose. Give me wisdom where I have been using force, and patience where I have been using haste.
For the morning of the thing you have been putting off.
Ganapathi, I am afraid, and the work is still mine to do. Let the fear inform me and not command me. Let me take the first step while it is still difficult.
For the ordinary, unwitnessed hours where discipline is actually made.
Ganapathi, let me keep the small promises I make to myself. Let me begin at the hour I said I would, and stay until the work is honest. Let the sweetness I seek be the kind that is earned.
For everything begun with enthusiasm and left standing half-built.
Ganapathi, I have begun more than I have finished. Show me what to set down so that what remains can be completed. Let me be someone whose word and whose work end in the same place.
Desire is not treated here as an enemy to be destroyed, but as an energy to be seated and directed.
Ganapathi, my wanting is restless and it moves in the dark. Do not take it from me. Sit upon it. Let it carry me towards what is worth wanting. May my desires remain under my direction and may I never become their servant.
For the day after the success, and the day after the failure.
Ganapathi, let praise not lift me out of myself and let blame not take me from my work. Give me the capacity to receive whatever comes, understand it, and remain where I am.
Traditional verses
Nothing in this list is composed. Where a verse is widely recited but its textual source is not settled, that is said plainly rather than smoothed over.
ॐ गं गणपतये नमः
oṁ gaṁ gaṇapataye namaḥ
Om. Gaṁ. Salutations to Gaṇapati.
वक्रतुण्ड महाकाय सूर्यकोटि समप्रभ ।निर्विघ्नं कुरु मे देव सर्वकार्येषु सर्वदा ॥
vakratuṇḍa mahākāya sūryakoṭi samaprabha |nirvighnaṁ kuru me deva sarvakāryeṣu sarvadā ||
O curved-trunked one, mighty of form, radiant as ten million suns: let my every undertaking be free of obstruction, always.
शुक्लाम्बरधरं विष्णुं शशिवर्णं चतुर्भुजम् ।प्रसन्नवदनं ध्यायेत् सर्वविघ्नोपशान्तये ॥
śuklāmbaradharaṁ viṣṇuṁ śaśivarṇaṁ caturbhujam |prasannavadanaṁ dhyāyet sarvavighnopaśāntaye ||
Clothed in white, all-pervading, moon-hued, four-armed, serene of face: may he be contemplated, for the quietening of all obstruction.
गजाननं भूतगणादिसेवितं कपित्थजम्बूफलचारुभक्षणम् ।उमासुतं शोकविनाशकारणं नमामि विघ्नेश्वरपादपङ्कजम् ॥
gajānanaṁ bhūtagaṇādisevitaṁ kapitthajambūphalacārubhakṣaṇam |umāsutaṁ śokavināśakāraṇaṁ namāmi vighneśvarapādapaṅkajam ||
The elephant-faced one, attended by the hosts of beings, who delights in the wood-apple and rose-apple fruits; the son of Umā, the cause of the ending of sorrow: I bow to the lotus feet of the lord of obstacles.
ॐ एकदन्ताय विद्महे वक्रतुण्डाय धीमहि ।तन्नो दन्तिः प्रचोदयात् ॥
oṁ ekadantāya vidmahe vakratuṇḍāya dhīmahi |tanno dantiḥ pracodayāt ||
We know the one-tusked one; we meditate upon the curved-trunked one. May that tusked one impel us onward.
एकदन्तं चतुर्हस्तं पाशमङ्कुशधारिणम् ।रदं च वरदं हस्तैर्बिभ्राणं मूषकध्वजम् ॥
ekadantaṁ caturhastaṁ pāśamaṅkuśadhāriṇam |radaṁ ca varadaṁ hastairbibhrāṇaṁ mūṣakadhvajam ||
One-tusked, four-handed, holding the noose and the goad, bearing in his hands the tusk and the gesture of giving, with the mouse upon his banner.
Recitation and pronunciation are best learned from a person, not a page. Where you can, hear these from someone who knows them.