Ganesha had eaten well, as he does, and was riding home on his mouse through the night with his belly full of modaks. The mouse startled at a snake in the path, and Ganesha fell, and the sweets scattered on the road. He gathered them up unhurt and unbothered. But Chandra, the moon, watching from above, laughed at the sight of the round god sprawled among his sweets.

Ganesha rose and cursed him: let no one look upon you again, and let your light be gone. The night went dark. Without the moon the tides forgot themselves, the plants that grew by his light failed, and the gods came to plead. Ganesha relented, but a curse once spoken is not unspoken. He softened it instead: the moon would wax and wane, dark for a part of each month and full again, and only on Bhadrapada Chaturthi, the night of the laughter, would looking at him bring blame.

That is why, on Ganesh Chaturthi, people are told not to look at the moon, and why anyone who does is advised to hear this very story, which lifts the fault from them.

The Moral

The moon is not punished for laughing at a fall; he is punished for laughing at someone who was not ashamed. Mockery aimed at dignity does not injure the dignified, it darkens the one who mocks. And there is mercy in the ending: the curse is not lifted but shaped into a rhythm, waxing and waning, which is the tradition’s way of saying that consequences can be lived with rather than escaped.

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