ശ്രീ ഗണേശ സ്തുതി

Four couplets in Braj by Tulsidas, and the last of them is why the piece is remembered. Sing of Ganapati, saluted by the world, Shankara's son and Bhavani's delight; house of accomplishment, elephant-bodied, Vinayaka, an ocean of grace, beautiful, equal to everything; lover of the modaka, giver of gladness and of good fortune, sea of learning, ordainer of the intelligence. Then the turn: Tulsidas asks with folded hands — and what he asks for is not wealth, nor learning, nor the clearing of obstacles, but that Rama and Sita should come and live in his mind. A hymn to Ganesha that spends its one request on somebody else is unusual, and characteristic of the man who wrote it.