some points of doctrine. His sakti seated on his lap is missing.
Kuvera had his abode in the Himālayas, and was essentially a mountain gnome. In the Indian plains his place was taken by Ganēsha and by Hanumān. The former, otherwise known as Ganapati, or Vināyaka, is the King of the Ganas, or troops of minor devils who are under Siva's commands in the same way as the Buddha is said to have enrolled the hosts of the evil spirit, Mārā, in his service after he had foiled the tempter under the Bodhi-tree. Ganēsha probably was an aboriginal jungle deity brought into the Hindu pantheon as a son of Siva and teacher of wisdom. The quaint legend in the Purānas which accounts for his elephant's head and infant's body says that Parvati, when taking a bath, fashioned him from the scurf of her body and set him down to guard the entrance. He did his duty so valiantly that Siva himself could not gain admittance until he had cut off his head. Parvati insisted that her offspring should be restored to life, and as the child's head could not be found, Siva replaced it with that of the wisest of beasts. He thus was installed among the gods as the genial protector of households and the personification of common sense, whose aid should be first invoked in all worldly enterprises. He was also the scribe of the gods and the especial patron of authors, in which capacity he represented the traditional knowledge known as smriti, that which is remembered, as distinguished from sruti, the intimations of divine wisdom which come from God Himself and are given both to Brahman and Sūdra, the learned and the ignorant.
This quaint conception of worldly wisdom is one of the most popular of Hindu household gods, and is
