Pounamu Pounamu Pounamu refers to several types of hard, durable and highly valued nephrite jade, bowenite, or serpentinite stone found in southern New Zealand. Pounamu is the Māori name. These rocks are also generically known as "greenstone" in New Zealand English. There are two systems for classifying pounamu. Geologically, the rock falls into the three categories named above, but Māori classify pounamu by appearance. The main classifications are "kawakawa", "kahurangi", "īnanga", and "tangiwai". The first three are nephrite jade, while "tangiwai" is a form of bowenite. In modern usage "pounamu" almost always refers to nephrite jade. Pounamu is generally found in
Thirty-two forms of Ganesha the 9th and 10th centuries. Ramachandra Rao says that: Thirty-two forms of Ganesha Thirty-two forms of Ganesha are mentioned frequently in devotional literature related to the Hindu god Ganesha (Ganapati). The Ganesha-centric scripture "Mudgala Purana" is the first to list them. Detailed descriptions are included in the "Shivanidhi" portion of the 19th-century Kannada "Sritattvanidhi". There are also sculptural representations of these thirty-two forms in the temples at Nanjangud and Chāmarājanagar (both in Mysore district, Karnataka), done about the same time as the paintings were done and also at the direction of the same monarch. Each of the thirty-two illustrations is