"Don't
See the Moon on the Night of Ganesh Chaturthi"
The Legend Behind the Practise
There is a popular legend regarding this
context. Lord Ganesh is known to be very fond of sweet pudding
or Ladoos. On one of His birthdays he was going around house to
house accepting the offerings of sweet puddings.
Having eaten a
good number of these, he set out moving on his mouse at night.
Suddenly the mouse stumbled as it had seen a snake and became
frightened with the result of that Ganeshji fell down.
His stomach burst
open and all the sweet puddings came out. But Ganeshji stuffed
them back into his stomach and, caught hold of the snake and
tied it around his belly.
Seeing all this,
the moon in the sky had a hearty laugh. This unseemly behaviour
of the moon annoyed him immensely and so he pulled out one of
his tusks and hurled it against the moon, and cursed that no one
should look at the moon on the Ganesh Chaturthi day. If anyone
does, he will surely earn a bad name.
Thus as the
story passed down the generations it got accepted that anyone who looks at the moon on the night of
the Ganesh Chaturthi will be falsely accused. If someone
inadvertently sees the moon on this night, he/she may remedy
the situation by listening to (or reciting) the story of the
syamantaka jewel found in the Puranas.
Briefly,
Satrajit, who secured a jewel syamantaka from Surya, did not
part with it even when Krishna the Lord of Dvaraka, asked for it
saying it would be safe with him. Prasena, the brother of
Satrajit went out hunting wearing the jewel but was killed by a
lion. Jambavan of the Ramayana fame killed the lion and
gave it to his son to play with. When Prasena did not return,
Satrajit falsely accused Krishna of killing Prasena for the sake
of the jewel. Krishna, in order to remove the stain on his
reputation, set out in search of the jewel and found it in
Jambavan's cave, with his child. Jambavan attacked Krishna
thinking him to be an intruder who had come to take away the
jewel. They fought each other for 28 days, when Jambavan, his
whole body terribly weakened from the hammering of Krishna's
fists, finally recognized Him as Lord Rama.
As
a repentance for his having fought Krishna, Jambavan gave
Krishna the jewel and also his daughter Jambavati in marriage.
Krishna returned to Dvaraka with Jambavati and the jewel, and
returned it to Satrajit, who in turn repented for his false
accusation. He promptly offered to give Krishna the jewel and
his daughter Satyabhama in marriage. Krishna accepted Satyabhama
as his wife but did not accept the jewel.
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