Ganapati Bappa Morya

By Mira Pawar.

Ganesh Chaturthi is round the corner and most households are preparing to celebrate the occasion. Lord Ganesh is the God of wisdom, prosperity and the remover of obstacles. On Ganesh Chaturthi, Ganesh idol is brought home with the reverberating chants of “Ganapati Bappa Morya”.  Have you ever realised why the word Morya is attached to Ganapati? Lord Ganesh is known by various names like Ganapati, Gajanand, Ek Danta, Vighna Vinashak, Vinayak, Devavrata and many more. The association of the word Morya with Ganapati Bappa has an intriguing backstory.

The story goes back to the 14^th century. There is a place called Chinchwad about 18 Kms from Pune in Maharashtra State and every person living in this place, knows this story. People here greet one another not by saying “Namaste” but by saying “Morya”. So who was Morya? Morya apparently was a great devotee of Lord Ganesh. Born in 1375 as Morya Gosavi, his devotion towards Lord Ganesh came to light when he was just a kid. It is believed that from a young age, during every Ganesh Chaturthi, Morya Gosavi used to walk 90 kms to Moreshwar Temple in Morgaon. He used to take a dip in the lake adjacent to the temple and perform the rituals of the Puja and walk back home all the way. He followed this practice year after year.

Once, when Morya walked to Morgaon during Ganesh Chaturthi, he could not access entry to the temple due to floods. So, Morya sat under a nearby tree and completed the rituals of his puja. Pleased with his devotion, Lord Ganesh gave Morya darshan. Since then, it is said that people of Morgaon started having similar devotion for Morya as much as they had for Mayureshwar Ganapati. Since this incident, all the devotees of Ganapati started chanting Morya’s name with Ganapati Bappa. Morya had always wished that whenever people worshipped Lord Ganesh, they should chant his name also and his wish came true. Because of his immense devotion for Lord Ganesh, people living in and around Chinchwad started to treat Morya Gosavi as a spiritual leader and visited him for blessings. It’s believed that the Peshwas who were the chief ministers of the Maratha empire in India, also visited Morya for blessings.

When Morya aged, he became feeble and faced a lot of difficulty commuting to the Mayureshwar Temple. Sometime, during this period, Lord Ganesh appeared in Morya’s dream and asked him to go to the Mayureshwar temple in Morgaon and take a bath in the kund (lake) after which the Lord said he will give him darshan. Morya followed the instruction and as he came out after taking a dip in the kund, he noticed an idol of Lord Ganesh in his palm. He carried this idol to the temple in Chinchwad and installed it there. For the rest of his life, whenever, Morya couldn’t visit Mayureshwar temple in Morgaon, he visited this Ganesh temple in Chinchwad.  

As per legends, Morya’s birth was not a coincidence. It seems his parents Wamanbhat and Parvatibai were also great devotees of Lord Ganesh. Once, Lord Ganesh had appeared in their dream and revealed that he was very pleased with their devotion and he would take birth in their home. Morya lived to the age of 117 after which he took Samadhi. People of Chinchwad and Morgaon believe they still feel the presence of Morya in both these places.

There is a very strong belief that once you have visited the Ashta-Vinayak (8 Ganapati temples) your life is blessed. The pilgrimage of Ashta-Vinayak begins from Mayureshwar temple in Morgaon, Pune district. The eight Ashta-Vinayak temples are Moreshwar temple in Morgaon; Siddi-Vinayak in Siddhatek, Ahmednagar; Ballaleshwar Pali, in Raigarh district; Varadanayak temple in Mahad, Raigarh; Chintamani temple in Theur, Pune; Girijatmaj temple in Lenyadri, Pune District; Vighneshwar temple in Ojer, Nashik District and Mahaganapati temple in Ranjanagaon, Pune.