the Ultimate Web on Indian Gods & Temples

 by Padmani,

 Saraswathy

Goddess Saraswati (Sarasvati) is the wife (consort) of Lord Brahma and possesses the powers of speech, wisdom and learning. She has four hands representing four aspects of human personality in learning; mind, intellect, alertness and ego.

She is said to have invented Sanskrit, language of the Brahmins, of scriptures and of scholarship, and one account says that it was she who discovered soma or amrita in the Himalayas and brought it to the other gods.

She is goddess of all the creative arts and in particular of poetry and music, learning and science. She is represented as a graceful woman with white skin, wearing a crescent moon on her brow; she rides a swan or peacock, or is seated on a lotus flower.

She has sacred scriptures in one hand and a lot us (a symbol of true knowledge) in the second. With her other two hands she plays the music of love and life on the violin (veena). She is dressed in white (sign of purity) and rides on a white goose (swan).

Saraswati is one of the important goddesses in the Vedas. Vedic literature consistently associates her, even equates her, with the goddess of speech, poetry, music, and culture in general. In classical and medieval Hinduism Saraswati is primarily a goddess of poetic inspiration and learning. She becomes associated with the creator god Brahma as his wife. In this role she is creative sound, which lends to reality a peculiar and distinctive human dimension. She becomes identified with the dimension of reality that is best described as coherent intelligibility. Saraswati to this day is worshiped throughout India and on her special day is worshiped by school children as the patron goddess of learning.

As early as the Vedas Saraswati is consistently identified with Vagdevi, the goddess of speech. It is not at all clear what intrinsic connection between Saraswati and Vagdevi led to this association. Perhaps the centrality of sacred speech in Vedic cult and the importance of Vedic rituals being performed on the banks of the Saraswati River led to the identification of the two goddesses. In any case, Saraswati increasingly becomes a goddess associated with speech, learning, culture, and wisdom; most post-Vedic references to her do not even hint that at one time she was identified with a river.

According to Brahma-vaivarta-purana and the Devi-bhagavata-purana, Krishna, who is identified with absolute reality {brahman), divides himself into male and female, purusa and prakrti, spirit and matter, in order to proceed with creation. His female half takes on five forms or five sash's, dynamic powers, one of which is Saraswati.

Her specific creative function in relation to the other saktis is to pervade reality with insight, knowledge, and learning, In relation to prakrti she is said to be purely sattvic, spiritual. These same texts also describe Sarasvatl's origin from the tip of Krishna's sakti's tongue. Suddenly, they say, a lovely girl appears dressed in yellow clothes, adorned with jewels, and carrying a book and a vina (lute). Saraswati is also often said to have her origin in and to reside in the mouths or on the tongues of the god Brahma (Brahma has four or five heads) That is, when Brahma undertakes the creation of the world through creative speech, the goddess Saraswati is born in his mouths. Saraswati is also said to have had her origin from the god Vishnu.