Pictorial Story of the elephant-headed compound creature, from India to Iran

In the mythological world of ancient civilizations of Iran and India, which are considered as relatives due to ethnic, cultural and mythical similarities; there are creatures with distinguishing characteristics. Some of them have the ability to metamorphose or transform.The Indian composite phenomenon called Ganesh which is among the popular Hindu animal gods is one of the examples. This creature is often displayed as one of the demons of some Iranian manuscripts like Shahnameh, thus, the present research aims at investigating the reasons and evidences of such phenomenon in Indian and Iranian myths, literature and paintings. The results of this study, using descriptive-analytic methodand library resources, reveals that this compound phenomenon was elevated in his birthplace, India, from demon’s land into the realm of the gods, turned intoone of the favorite Asian gods and influenced the Manichaeism religion. Meanwhile, the evil, less important counterpart of this phenomenon also continues to exist in the art and literature of India But this transformed creature in Persia at the time of Zoroastrianism solely was displayed as the demon. The main reason is the former gods at that time were considered enemies in Zoroastrian religion and entering Islamic beliefs and Iranian folks,Ganesh was portrayed only byits negative dimension, as a genie.