Om Sri Ganja

Painted welded steel, 68 x 48 x 48, 2006.

The title takes the mantra Om Shri Ganeshaya Namah, a salutation to Ganesha, and shortens his name to ganja. The leaves in the sculpture carry the second half of the pun. They are green, long and serrated along the edges, and they curve out from a central hub in a ring. A ring of petals around a center is the form of a lotus, the seat on which Indian images set their gods, and the dancing Ganesha stands in the lotus’s place.

Cannabis has an established position in Shaiva devotion. Bhang is drunk at Shiva’s festivals, and ascetics smoke ganja as part of approaching him. Ganesha is Shiva’s son, so the herb belongs to his family. The pun joins two practices that run along similar lines: a mantra works through repetition, offering and sustained sound, and ganja is used to lift a person out of the ordinary state by similar means. The figure on top is in that lifted condition. He balances on one bent leg with a club raised in one hand and his trunk curled out to the side, in a skipping, weightless stance.

The architecture beneath shows how the plant is being treated. A fluted column with a stepped foot rises from a round base, and a collar of tall red plates stands around it. The leaves sit at the top of the column, in the position where a Corinthian capital would carry its acanthus. The classical order supplies a serrated leaf as its crown, and here the herb takes that role. The plant is the capital, the lotus seat and the dancer’s footing in the same form, and the god stands on it as he would on any sacred ground.