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Let me start by explaining my title. Pulleyar is the Sinhalese version of the Tamil word Pillaiyar (Pillear). In Tamil, but not is Sinhalese, this word means “the son” and is the name given to Ganesha, the elephant headed Hindu deity who is rated the son of Shiva and Parvati. In the Hindu system Shiva (God) has many aspects. Because he is a potent warrior his emblems include the lingam (Phallus), trident and spear; because he is an ascetic monk they include a rosary and a begging bowl.27
The philosophic dialectic which makes such contradictions sensible is not easily understood; in village Hinduism the various aspects of Shiva are distributed among secondary deities who are thought of as members of his family. His consort Parvati, like Aphrodite, represents sexual love; his sons Skanda and Aiyanar are warriors, and his third son Ganesha is, after a fashion, as ascetic. But Ganesha's/qualities are ambiguous and it is with this ambiguity that this essay is largely concerned.
If Parvati be equated with Aphrodite, than Ganesha is the equivalent of Hermes, “breaker of the way and guide of the soul.”28 He is the doorkeeper of heaven, a trickster whose friendly help can clear all obstructions but whose enmity can cause disaster. Now one of Ganesha's special characteristics is that he has a broken tusk