Gujarat’s first eco-friendly Ganesha idol sculpted using ‘cow dung’

The entire country comes together wholeheartedly to celebrate Ganesh Utsav that marks the birthday of everyone’s favourite Lord Ganesha.

The 10-day festival ends with bidding farewell to the Lord by submerging the idols to large water bodies. These large Ganesha idols are however made of Plaster of Paris (PoP) that cause toxic pollution under water.

To bring change in the yearly ritual of polluting land and water, Kishan Shah of Vadodara is uniquely sculpting a 2.5 ft high and 1.5 ft broad idol of Lord Ganesha using cow dung. The idol weighs 48 kg and has Ganesha’s trunk molded on the right side which is called ‘Siddhi Vinayaka’ as per Hindu beliefs.

Creating the idol out of cow dung has its own reasons, for instance, cow dung is considered pious in Hinduism for the scientific elements present in the mixture. Cows are sacred animals worshipped by many Hindus, and its manure is one of the pristine as it is believed to purify and clean homes in the Hinduism. However, Kishan says that using cow dung to make this Ganesha idol was to spread an important message of how PoP and other materials used to make large idols harm the large water bodies and the marine life living under. Cow dung take 2-3 hours to completely dissolve in water whereas idols made from clay dissolve in 4-5 hours and PoP takes several months to years to dissolve.

This eco-friendly Ganesha can be sculpted by anyone – all it takes is faith, belief and patience.