Ishvara has ‘Nandi’ or ‘Bull’ as his carrier.Parvati, the universal Mother has a lion as her carrier. Elephant headed Ganapati has a mouse as his carrier. Subrahmanya has a peacock as his carrier. Thus, the four members of the family are Parvati,Parameshvara, Vinayaka and Subrahmanya who really represent the four Purusharthas:Dharma,Artha, Kama and Moksha. The carriers to these four members of the family are inimical to each other. Ishvara wears Agni or fire in his forehead and water - Ganga on his head. Water and fire do not go together. All the ornaments which the father wears are serpents. While their carriers and the ornaments they wear and their appurtenances are all mutually inimical and contradictory to each other, yet this closely knit family of Ishvara and Parvati has been demonstrating to the entire world how a family, though consisting of contradictory elements should live in concord. (SSB 1974, p. 208)