Made of Speech, Made of Mind
The story
The verse says what Ganesha is made of, using the Sanskrit ending "-maya", made of, full of. Speech comes first. Ganesha is the god of letters and learning, and in many tellings he is the scribe who wrote down the Mahabharata. The verse goes on to "made of Brahman", the ground of everything; the line here stops at joy.
त्वं वाङ्मयस्त्वं चिन्मयः। त्वमानन्दमयस्त्वं ब्रह्ममयः॥
tvaṃ vāṅmayastvaṃ cinmayaḥ | tvamānandamayastvaṃ brahmamayaḥ ||
Ganapati Atharvashirsha, verse 4 in the common numbering; our translation
The same moment, today
A man spends twenty minutes on a three-line email to his brother. He types a sentence, deletes it, and types it again. Then one version finally says what he meant, and he feels it right away. The thought and the words have lined up, and he's glad.
The verse says Ganesha is made of those things. Sanskrit adds the ending -maya to a word to mean made of, or full of. The verse calls him vangmaya, made of speech, then chinmaya, made of mind, then anandamaya, made of joy, and it goes on to say he is made of Brahman. Speech comes first for a reason. Ganesha is the god of letters and learning, and in a well-known story he is the scribe who wrote down the Mahabharata. The English here is our own plain rendering of the Sanskrit.
The lesson
When you're stuck for words, go back and get the thought clear first. The sentence usually follows.
Where this comes from
Speech before mind
This verse comes right after the one asking protection for the speaker and the listener. The Atharvashirsha is a late hymn, probably from the 16th or 17th century, though tradition attaches it to the Atharva Veda. Its list of things he is made of echoes the much older Taittiriya Upanishad, which describes a person in layers, from the body made of food to the self made of joy.
Clear thinking and clear speech come together, and getting them to line up is a small joy.
$3.50
2.5 inches vinyl · weatherproof · ships in 1–3 days
Mix & save: 3 for $9 · 5 for $14 · 10 for $25· free shipping at ten
- Weatherproof vinyl
- Ships from Wayzata in 1–3 business days
- Secure checkout
If anything is wrong, we'll refund or replace it. Read the policy
The artwork is made with AI image tools, by agents we design and check. Each sticker is then printed on vinyl and die-cut to order.
