Ekadantar: always ready to give up

 

Next ekandatar. Sumakach- chaikadanthascha: -- second name is ekadantar. It means the one with one tusk. Single tusked. Normally the male elephant has two tusks. Female elephant has no tusks. For vigneswarar, only one tusk.

 

For him also initially there were 2 tusks. After he on his own, broke the right tusk. In statues, we can see him keeping the broken tusk in his right hand.

 

Why did he break? Mythologically they tell two stories.

 

When vyasa was narrating Mahabharata, immediately vigneswarar had to quickly write them on the rocks of the Himalayas. At that time insteading running around in search of the scribes, he decided to break one of his tusks and wrote them- this one story. The story's morale is: For the sake of knowledge development, vigneswarar decided to sacrifice a part of his body – among the parts of the elephant's body – which is claimed to be 1000 golds worth even with it is dead – and that too the most valuable part (i.e. the tusk) while still alive – thus showing his noble quality.

 

The second story, he broke his own tusk and used it as a weapon to terminate gajamukasura (the demon with elephant head) who could not be terminated by any other weapon. This story shows that for the sake for worldly good he was ready to give up all of his that was needed. Usually for this ability to give up, dadisai is shown as example. The tusk is also the elephants bone only. Therefore, vigneswarar is also "the example of selfless" and the embodiment of love.