Ganapati Atharvashirsa

The is a Vedic religious text dedicated to the deity Ganesha (). It is a late Upanishad that celebrates Ganesha as the embodiment of the ultimate Brahman. The text asserts its own status as an upanishad in its final line, which reads "Thus, the " (Sanskrit:; ).

It is also referred to as the Sri Ganapati Atharva Sirsha, the Ganapati Atharvashirsha, the Ganapati Atharvasirsa, or the Ganapati Upanishad.

It is the most widely-recited Sanskrit text among devotees of Ganesha in Maharashtra. The entire text is written over the entrance to the temple hall in the Ganesha shrine at Ranjangaon.

Dating

There is some dispute regarding the dating of the text. Courtright reviews various views and concludes that it was probably composed during the sixteenth or seventeenth centuried A.D. Ghurye notes its emergence in the early nineteenth century, corresponding to the rise of the Ganapati worship in Maharashtra...
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