Sasivekalu Ganesha

Sasivekalu Ganesha, on the slope of Hemakuta Hill in Hampi, is an 8-foot figure of Ganesha carved from one block of stone and sheltered by an open mandapa of roughly dressed pillars. An inscription at the site records that it was made in honour of King Narasimha II of Vijayanagara, and panels put up by the archaeology department explain its history.

The god sits in a half-lotus posture with four arms holding a goad, a noose, his broken tusk and a modak. A snake is knotted around his stomach: the story goes that Ganesha once ate so much that his belly threatened to burst, so he tied a serpent round it as a belt. 'Sasivekalu' means mustard seed in Kannada, a name linked to a legend comparing the belly to the seed.