Lord Ganesha Cult was present throughout the world.

I had written on,

Red Ganesha in Australia,

Ganeshaya Namah inscription in Azerbaijan,

Atlantis people were the descendants of Shiva, Ganesha and Subrahmanya,

Golden Ganesha idol was unearthed in Kuwait,

Ganesha’s mount, Mooshika was considered as a flying Machine y the Incas and there are paintings on this.

There is a temple for Haridra Ganapati in Thailand,

There is a view, a sound one at that  Dwimukha Ganapti ws worshiped as Janus by the Romans,

I had written the Italian connection to Hinduism , in various articles including the one on aerial view of Vatican, being identical with Shiva Linga with Avudaiyar(Peeta)

Janus.

‘In ancient Roman religion and myth, Janus (/ˈdʒeɪnəs/; Latin: Ianus, pronounced [ˈjaː.nus]) is the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, doorways, passages, and endings. He is usually depicted as having two faces, since he looks to the future and to the past. It is conventionally thought that the month of January is named for Janus (Ianuarius), but according to ancient Roman farmers’ almanacsJuno was the tutelary deity of the month.

Janus presided over the beginning and ending of conflict, and hence war and peace. The doors of his temple were open in time of war, and closed to mark the peace. As a god of transitions, he had functions pertaining to birth and to journeys and exchange, and in his association with Portunus, a similar harbor and gateway god, he was concerned with travelling, trading and shipping.

Janus had no flamen or specialised priest (sacerdos) assigned to him, but the King of the Sacred Rites (rex sacrorum) himself carried out his ceremonies. Janus had a ubiquitous presence in religious ceremonies throughout the year, and was ritually invoked at the beginning of each one, regardless of the main deity honored on any particular occasion.’

Note the similarities between Ganesha and Janus.

Both are given the first place in worship.

No special priest is required to perform Pooja  for both

Both are associated with travel.

We worship Ganesha before travel and there is a custom to break the coconut at the beginning or during the Journey.

Many of you would have noticed luxury Bus drivers and heavy vehicle drivers breaking coconut in a roadside Ganesha temple.

‘anus frequently symbolized change and transitions such as the progress of future to past, from one condition to another, from one vision to another, and young people’s growth to adulthood. He represented time, because he could see into the past with one face and into the future with the other.. Hence, Janus was worshipped at the beginnings of the harvest and planting times, as well as at marriages, deaths and other beginnings. He represented the middle ground between barbarism and civilization, rural and urban space, youth and adulthood. Having jurisdiction over beginnings Janus had an intrinsic association with omens and auspices’

All these are being the process of Gnapati worship.

Latin Verse on Janus.

Carmen Saliare

As may be expected the opening verses of the Carmen, are devoted to honouring Janus, thence were named versus ianuli. Paul the Deacon mentions the versus ianuli, iovii, iunonii, minervii. Only part of the versus ianuli and two of the iovii are preserved.

The manuscript has:

(paragraph 26): “cozeulodorieso. omia ũo adpatula coemisse./ ian cusianes duonus ceruses. dun; ianusue uet põmelios eum recum“;

(paragraph 27): “diuum êpta cante diuum deo supplicante.” “ianitos“.

Many reconstructions have been proposed: they vary widely in dubious points and are all tentative, nonetheless one can identify with certainty some epithets:

Cozeiuod orieso. Omnia vortitod Patulti; oenus es

iancus (or ianeus), Iane, es, duonus Cerus es, duonus Ianus.

Veniet potissimum melios eum recum.

Diuum eum patrem (or partem) cante, diuum deo supplicate.

ianitos.

The epithets that can be identified are: Cozeuios, i.e. Conseuius the Sower, which opens the carmen and is attested as an old form of Consivius in Tertullian; Patultius: the Opener; Iancus or Ianeus: the Gatekeeper; Duonus Cerus: the Good Creator; rex king (potissimum melios eum recum: the most powerful and best of kings); diuum patrem (partem):father of the gods (or part of the gods); diuum deus: god of the gods; ianitos: the Janitor, Gatekeeper.’

All are the Attributes of Ganesha.

I may add that Jaanu is a term for Ears, Ganesha’s ear being huge(elephant’s)

Janus in Ganesha.

In 1806 Sir William Jones drew a close comparison between a particular form of Ganesha, known as Dwimukhi-Ganesha, and Janus, the two-headed Roman god. Jones felt the resemblance between Dwimukhi-Ganesha and Janus was so strong that he referred to Ganesha as the “Janus of India.” The Dwimukhi-Ganesha form is a very unusual depiction in which Ganesha is shown with the head of an elephant looking toward his right and a human head at his left. It was possessed of four arms. Nagar says that the Dwimukhi-Ganesha form was associated with the region around Bombay.

There was no clear claim by Jones either that Ganesha was worshipped by the Romans or how Janus could have evolved from Ganesha as a prototype (or vice versa). Another early 19th century Indologist, Edward Moor, repeated the speculation by Jones, helping to keep the Janus idea alive Moor expanded the claims of an association based on functional grounds, noting that Janus, like Ganesha, was invoked at the beginning of undertakings, a liminal god who was the guardian of gates. Moor made various other speculations on the connection between Janus and Ganesha. These fanciful connections proposed by early Indologists no longer appear in modern academic reviews of Ganesha’s history.

Ganesha is represented as having anywhere from one to five heads, so depictions with two heads are not reliable evidence of a connection with Janus. Representations of Ganesha with two heads are uncommon, and according to Nagar, textual references to the adoration of Ganesha with two heads are difficult to trace. There are no other examples of two-headed forms in which one head is human other than the Dwimukhi-Ganesha form. In the thirty-two mediation forms of Ganesha that are described in theSritattvanidhi only one has two heads (Dwimukhi Ganapati, the Ganapati with two faces), and both of those are heads of elephants, like all the other forms described.

References and citations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganesha_in_world_religions#Speculation_related_to_Janus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janus#Position_in_the_pantheon

Janus Image credit.By Loudon dodd – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7404342

Filed under: Hinduism Tagged: Dwimukha Ganapati, Ganapathy Forms, ganapati worship, Ganesh Chaturthi, Ganesha, Ganesha Janus, Pagans, Roman Gods