Mahaganapati Temple

Tradition holds that the Mahaganapati form of Ganesha here aided Shiva in the destruction of the demon Tripurasura’s three fortress-cities (the Tripura legend), and that the town’s older name, Manipur, later became Ranjangaon. Wikipedia’s account of the site dates the temple’s construction to between the 9th and 10th centuries, with the Peshwa ruler Madhavrao later adding a basement chamber to house a Ganesha idol; in 1790 CE one Anyaba Dev was authorised to conduct worship of the idol. On the Pune-Ahmednagar highway, it is among the more easily accessible and frequently visited of the eight Ashtavinayak shrines.

The east-facing temple’s imposing main gate is flanked by statues of the guardians Jay and Vijay, and the sanctum is aligned so that during Dakshinayana (the sun’s southward course) sunlight falls directly on the deity. The seated murti, flanked by Riddhi and Siddhi, has its trunk turned to the left; local tradition holds that the visible idol is a stand-in for a larger, hidden original with ten trunks and twenty arms. The temple’s Ganesha idol is said to have been donated by the Khollam family, goldsmiths of Ranjangaon.