By Melonie Magruder
Lookout Staff

February 1, 2012 -- One of Santa Monica’s more successful young start-up businesses recently averted an incident that risked offending some 900 million Hindus worldwide.

Yogamatic.com produces custom-made yoga mats imprinted with images of everything from ocean vistas to protein bars. When they produced a mat that featured an image of Ganesha, the elephant deity worshiped as the lord of success and god of wisdom and wealth, nirvana was ruffled.

Rajan Zed, president of the Universal Society of Hinduism, based in Nevada, fired off a press release to a number of media outlets, protesting the “inappropriate usage of Hindu deities or concepts for commercial agendas.”

He pointed out that Ganesha was meant to be worshipped in temples and not “trampled under one’s feet while doing yoga.”

Zed maintained that upset Hindus nationwide were calling for the immediate recall of the offending mats.

When informed of the offense, Yogamatic -- a subsidiary of Anymatic.com, a custom-print active wear and equipment firm that opened in Santa Monica four years ago -- immediately issued an apology.

“There are millions of Ganesha products available on the internet and the contributor of this mat supplied the design in good faith," company officials wrote in a statement. "Please accept our apologies to the Hindu community.”

Yogamatic, whose product line includes bikinis, shorts and towels, as well as yoga mats, also removed the designs from their gallery.

When asked if the company's response was appropriate, Zed said he was satisfied.

“It was a very mature thing to do,” Zed said. “I sent them an email last weekend and they responded by Monday.

"Still, it was surprising that they created the mat in the first place. They knew who Ganesha is and how he is worshiped by the Hindu community," which numbers approximately three million practicing Hindus in the U.S., he said.

When asked about the kerfuffle, Yogamatic director William Cawley admitted he was a bit surprised at Zed’s response.

“We’ve had that design in our gallery for ages, and it’s never been an issue,” Cawley said. “But of course we are sensitive to offending people’s faith.

"I just wish he had called or written us first before sending out a big press release," Cawley said. "We gladly removed the image from our gallery and apologized honestly.”

Cawley said that the company’s galleries feature hundreds of different images, for which many are paid royalties

“We do careful copyright checks on all images,” Cawley said, with most designs coming from fans and even local artists. The only other religious image in the line is one of Buddha.

“Ninety percent of what we do are original designs,” Cawley said. “We’re proud of what we offer.”

But Zed doesn’t regret his fast action in contacting Yogamatic.

“Hinduism is the oldest and third largest religion in the world and should not be taken lightly,” Zed said. “Symbols of any faith, large or small, should not be mishandled or trivialized.”

For his part, Cawley said that some customers purchased the Lord Ganesha mats to use as wall hangings.

“Our mats are much larger than a poster image you could print up at Kinko’s,” Cawley said.