One more Ganapati. This is special as well.

A Ganga Jamuna (GJ) Valampuri Ganapati.

Ganga and Jamuna are two of the sacred rivers in India. Here it refers to images made with two distinct metals. In the case copper and brass. Brass is ‘laid’ on copper to give this distinct feature. 

GJ images are mainly from North Karnataka or from Madurai. The art of making GJ images is not practised now. GJ images are rare.

Valampuri, a Tamil word, refers to Ganapati’s trunk turned to the right. This is considered to be highly auspicious and is a rarer form of Ganapati. It is said casting of Valampuri is guided by more stringent conditions, timing, place, purity…Failure in following the conditions is supposed to bring ‘bad luck’ to the artisan. Hence the relative rarity of these images.

This image is about 8.3 cm tall and is from South India.