Gananam Tva Ganapatim

This is the oldest verse in which the word gaṇapati appears, and it is worth being precise about what that means. The verse addresses Brahmanaspati — the lord of sacred speech — and calls him the gaṇapati, the leader of the gaṇas or hosts. The elephant-headed Ganesha of the Puranas is a much later figure. That said, the verse is the one recited to Ganesha at the start of Vedic rites across South India and in Ganapati homa, so the association is old and living even if the identification is not original. Both facts are worth holding at once. It is also recited as the opening invocation in many temple liturgies, which is why it is filed here under avahana as well.