Gaṇeśa Wins the Race

Śiva and Pārvatī offer a divine fruit to whichever son first circles the whole world.

Kārtikeya leaps onto his peacock and streaks across mountains and seas.

Gaṇeśa, riding only his small mouse, knows he cannot win such a race.

He pauses, then quietly walks once around his parents and bows. “You are my whole world,” he says. “To circle you is to circle all that is.” His mother and father smile, for he has seen the deepest truth — that the divine is not somewhere distant but present in love close at hand.

The fruit is his. Devotion, not speed, carries the day.