Soft Powers: Affect and the Re-mediation of Gaṇeśa in Transnational Bhakti Yoga

This paper explores how bhakti symbols and practices are re-mediated within transnational yoga contexts, taking as its focal point the figure of Gaṇeśa as he circulates through children's culture and consumer markets. Scholarship on modern yoga has increasingly moved beyond an exclusive focus on āsana and physical culture, paying attention to kīrtan, popular culture, and the intersections of yoga with neoliberal economies. Yet the specifically devotional dimensions of Bhakti Yoga — and the affective, relational ways in which they are reshaped in new media environments — have received far less sustained attention, despite their centrality to how yoga is lived and transmitted.

Children's storybooks, music albums, and especially the Gaṇeśa plush toy — marketed as both a playful companion and an “educational” aid in yoga and wellness spaces — exemplify these processes of re-mediation. By translating devotional imagery and mantric associations into tactile, affectionate forms, such objects cultivate early bonds of intimacy with a deity while simultaneously embedding sacred figures in circuits of branding, pedagogy, and consumption.

Drawing on fieldwork and ongoing discussions within the ERC Synergy Project MANTRAMS (Taskforce 3: Materiality of Mantras), I argue that the plush Gaṇeśa illuminates the “soft powers” of contemporary Bhakti Yoga: the capacity of mantras and images to travel, adapt, and expand devotional affect across cultural boundaries, while also sparking debates about authenticity, authority, and the commodification of the sacred.