Mahaganapati, Ranjangaon

As the Great Ganapati, the deity of Ranjangaon is turned to when the obstacle is largest — the form whose worship steadied even Shiva before battle. It is the note of power on which the eight-temple journey ends, and for many the arrival here, after the seven shrines before it, is the emotional summit of the yatra.

The image faces east, seated cross-legged on a lotus between his consorts Riddhi and Siddhi, its trunk turned to the left; it is held swayambhu. Tradition tells of an original idol, called Mahotkat, hidden in a cellar beneath the shrine and said to have ten trunks and twenty arms — though the temple's own trustees say no such image exists, and it is best treated as legend rather than established fact. Whatever lies below, the Ganesha above is worshipped as the mightiest of the eight.

Ranjangaon lies on the old road from Pune toward Ahmednagar, and its Ganesha is Mahaganapati — the Great Ganapati, held to be the most powerful form among the eight. The temple's story reaches back to the gods themselves: when the demon Tripurasura, master of three flying cities, had grown all but invincible, even Shiva could not prevail until, at this spot, he first worshipped Ganesha to clear the obstacle before him. Honoured and invoked, Ganesha granted the strength by which Shiva destroyed the three cities and their lord — earning Shiva the name Tripurari, and giving the town he is said to have founded here, once called Manipur, its shrine.

The visible temple is of the Peshwa age, though a founding in the 9th or 10th century is sometimes proposed from the style of its older stonework. Madhavrao Peshwa is credited with building the stone sanctum and a chamber beneath it, and later patrons — Sardar Kibe of Indore among them, with the Holkars and Shindes — added the surrounding hall and courtyard cells, with a Nagarkhana raised over the gate. The temple faces east down the old highway, and travellers have long broken their journey here between Pune and the Deccan.

Ranjangaon is usually the eighth and last of the Ashtavinayak shrines before the pilgrim returns to Morgaon to close the circuit, and its Mahaganapati is invoked above all for strength in the face of great difficulty.

The temple is built so that, at certain times of the year, the rising sun sends its light straight onto the deity — an alignment sources tie to the sun's southward course, the Dakshinayan, rather than to the equinox of popular retelling. Its imposing main gateway is guarded by images of Jaya and Vijaya and topped by a Nagarkhana, the drum-chamber, with two tall deepmalas standing before it, kindled on festival nights.

Within the courtyard, walls, cells (owaris) and lamp-towers frame a sanctum of sober Peshwa-era stonework raised over an older core. The proportions are broad and solid, fitting the temple's name — everything here is built on a great scale, as befits the Great Ganapati.