Ganesha Curses the Moon

It was day of Chaurthi and month of Bhadrapada. The adode of Lord Shiva reverated with joy. Shiva's family, Nandi and the troop of Ganas residing on the Mountain Kailash gathered around Ganapati wishing him. They sang, rejoiced and danced. Ganesha was glorified. He danced and enjoyed with them too. Meanwhile, his mother Parvati went around preparing for the grand feast for celebrating Ganesha's birthday.  All deities were invited to celebrate the great day. 

Ganesha loved food immensely. He is very found of sweets especially moddaks, laddus and rice pudding. So Goddess Parvati prepared all different kind of sweets. She laid a seat of Dhruva grass for Ganesha. The Ganas wove garlands for him, while Nandi worked on a gem studded Crown for him.

By mid day the preparations were over. All deities arrived. The Shiva family, Ganas, Nandi, deities gathered to celebrate Ganesha's birthday. They all feasted after Parvati offered all delicacies to Ganesha for auspicious beginning. They glorified Ganesha and sang songs in his glory. The Kailash mountain reverberated with the chimes, drumbeats of festive merry.

After the celebrations were over, the deities returned. Parvati and Ganas went for resting. Ganesha also fell asleep. But he was soon woken up by Kroncha, his mouse steer. They played around for sometime after which Ganesha asked the mouse to take him for a ride. The naughty mouse happily agreed.

Ganesha mounted the mouse and together they went around seeing the beautiful forest. Soon it started turning dark. But it was a beautiful moonlit night. The mouse told Ganesha that he was tired and they should return home. Ganesha agreed saying that his home his mother must be worried.

On their way back to home, they reached a mountain plain. It had a steep elevation and the mouse tripped. Ganesha came rolling down from the mountain. The mouse was also hurt.

Up in sky, the moon laughed loudly seeing the pot belly Ganesha rolling down. His laughter echoed across the forest. All exiatence around watched in dismay. Ganesha felt very bad and humiliated. He became angry and said, 'O moon! You take prideimmense pride in your looks. You are arrogant and indifferent. I curse you - on day of by birthday celebrations (Ganesha Chaturthi) people shall ignore you and refrain from seeing you. If someone sees you, the person will become wrongly balanced and suffer'.

The moon now realized his mistake. It asked Ganesha to forgive him. But Ganesha was too angry to forgive him.

The moon pleaded hard to Ganesha. After a long time, when Ganesha felt that the moon was truly asking for forgiveness, he took mercy on him. He said to the moon, 'I cannot take away the curse on you. But I grant a boon that if falsely accused man looks at the moon on the second day of the fortnight he would win back his good name'.

The moon thanked Ganesha. Since then people have been following the custom of not seeing moon on day of Ganesh Chathurthi.