SriMadhwacharya in his commentaries states that as per Maandukopanishad, SriGanesha is the worshipper or upasaka of Vishwambhara roopi Narayana. Lord Narayana has infinite forms. Out of those forms Vishwambhara is one of them. The Vishwambhara is also known as Vishwa. This form of Lord Narayana resides in our eyes and through that gives us the knowledge of the outside world. Lord Vishwambhara has the central face as gajamukha. He has rest 19 heads which are of human heads. (See the below figure)
So, Lord Ganesha constantly meditates on the central Gajamukha of the Vishwambhara form of Lord Vishnu. So this is the base of the background. The story of Ganesha starts from when Devi Parvati makes a mud idol of Ganapati. She took out some pruthvi tattva from her body and made the pratima or idol and did praana pratishtha (giving life to the idol) in it. Now, after creating Ganapati, Parvati devi asked him to guard outside and not to let anyone in. Saying so Goddess Parvati went for snaana. Now, Lord Shiva came there and Ganapati didn’t allow him to go in due to which Lord Shiva cuts off Ganapati’s head.
Now, when Parvati learns that Lord Shiva cut Ganapati’s head, she prayed to Lord Shiva to make Ganapati alive again. Lord Shiva sent his ganas to bring a head of the animal facing north. All the ganas followed by Nandeeshwara brought an elephant’s face. All this was as per Hari sankalpa. Lord Hari in his Vishwambhara form has a central gajamukha face and Ganapati does the dhyaana of this face. So, Lord Shiva and Umadevi also knew it. This was just a Parvati-Parameshwara leela and Bhagavat sankalpa to happen. So, Lord Shiva place the gajamukha or an elephant’s head to Ganapati and made him alive again.
The Gajamukha even represents wisdom,because elephants have excellent memory and intelligence. His small eyes tells us that we must observe even minutest things. The large ears of elephant tells us that we must be a good listener. His long trunk teaches us to be flexible, handling both small and big challenges in life. Since Ganapati is Vidya and Buddhi devata, this elephants face was the perfect face for him.
Thats why Lord Ganesha’s head was attached to elephant’s head and not any human head.
Shubh Ganesh Chaturthi to all of you!
May Lord Vighnaharta Ganapati remove all our obstacles and bless us with buddhi, knowledge, health, wealth, prosperity, abundance and happiness.
Hope this helps you!
Jay SriRam
Ganapati Bappa Morya!
Mangal moorti morya!
ShriKrishnarpanamastu!