Sarasvati-A study of its origin

The word “sárasvatī” is the feminine of an adjective meaning “characterized by ponds/lakes (sarases),” the feminine being understood to agree with “river.” It has a cognate hara(h)uvati in Old Persian, or harahvaitī in Avestan, designating a country in Iran (Arachosia), presumably named after a river of the same name, in the same way that “Hindu” (India), the easternmost Old Persian province, was named after the river Sindhu, which formed the frontier between Iran and India at that time (Thieme, 1970). The river’s name would suggest that it had originally been applied to a slow-flowing river of little fall, which might be imagined to seep eventually away in the plains. This is, however, not in agreement with the oldest attestations in the Ṛgveda, where the Sarasvatī is celebrated as a mighty river, with impetuous masses of water, flowing into the ocean.

References and Myths in Ancient Indian Literature

Sarasvatī in the Ṛgveda

In the older maṇḍalas (Family Books; ṚV. 2–7) and in book 9 of the Ṛgveda, Sarasvatī does not appear very frequently. One hymn is dedicated to her in each of the sixth and seventh maṇḍalas (ṚV. 6.61; 7.95); in the fourth maṇḍala, she is not mentioned at all. She is named in the eighth verse of the Āprī invocations (a set of propitiatory hymns), normally together with the goddesses Iḷā and Bhāratī. She appears also in a few viśvedevas (all gods) hymns, towards the end of the pantheon lists; an example is 2.41, where she is the only female deity, praised as “most motherly, most riverly, most heavenly,” and asked to bestow progeny. Other aspects of her seem to depend on the context in which she is presented. In a martial hymn mainly addressed to Indra in the second maṇḍala, she is expected to kill enemies (ṚV. 2.30.8); this and other features, which are reminiscent of Indra’s battle with Vṛtra, are elaborated more in Ṛgveda 6.61, where she is called Vṛtraghnī (fem. form of Indra’s epithet Vṛtrahán, “Destroyer of Vṛtra,” that is, the serpent-demon who imprisoned the waters), and her violent break through the mountain ridge is graphically described. Like Indra, she is also often in the company of the maruts (the storm gods; see vedic gods). Although she is clearly a goddess, her riverine nature is hardly ever forgotten, but her geographical identification with an existing river remains doubtful. There is only one attestation (ṚV. 3.23.4) where Sarasvatī seems to be named merely as a geographical location for the sacrificial fire ( yajña ), together with the rivers Dṛṣadvatī and Āpayā. Dṛṣadvatī and Sarasvatī are mentioned together again in Pañcaviṃśabrāhmaṇa 25.10.13–15 and later in Manusmṛti 2.17, where they are said to form the borders of Brahmāvarta. Apart from that, Sarasvatī seems to be rather the river par excellence, originating high in the mountain or even in heaven in Ṛgveda 5.43.11 (like the Gaṅgā in later mythology), and flowing into the ocean (like the Indus, the main river known to the Aryans), according an attestation in the seventh maṇḍala (ṚV. 7.95.2), where she appears as one of the seven rivers (saptá síndhava [saptasindhu]) of the Aryan homeland (ṚV. 7.36.6). Perhaps Sarasvatī was the individual name given by the Aryans to the main river of the Indus Valley, which may originally have included the water of the Yamunā (flowing westward) as well as the water of the modern Sutlej, using the older riverbed south of the modern Indus to flow into the ocean (see Wilhelmy, 1999), whereas the word sindhu was mainly used in appellative meanings (e.g. “river,” “flood of water”).

Rivers are often compared with cows, their life-sustaining water being identified with nourishing milk and ghee. Thus Sarasvatī yielded milk and ghee to the Nāhuṣa people (ṚV. 7.95.2); she is also called ghṛtācī (filled with ghee), and in one of the soma hymns (pāvamānī) in the ninth maṇḍala, she is said to give “milk, butter, honey, and water to him who studies the pāvamānī hymns” (ṚV. 9.76.32).

One aspect of Sarasvatī that is not directly evident from her riverine nature seems to be her connection with dhī (the thought that precedes speech and the composition of a hymn); it is alluded to in the Āprī invocation in the second maṇḍala (ṚV. 2.3.8) and is mentioned in some places in the sixth and seventh maṇḍalas (ṚV. 6.49.7; 7.35.11).

In the somewhat later first maṇḍala, reference is made to her female breast, with which she provides nourishment. She appears, as usual, in Āprī hymns, once qualified as “giving nourishment or pleasure” (máyas). In a triad of verses dedicated to her in a viśvedevas hymn, she is described as “rich in creative thoughts” (dhiyāvasu) or “as ruling over all creative thoughts” and thus stimulating the composition of hymns.

In the latest (tenth) maṇḍala, most of the aspects so far described appear again. She is once asked to bestow offspring (gárbha) and once to bestow “youthful strength” (váyas); she and other rivers are identified as “mothers” and asked for sweet, creamy (ghṛtávat) milk, and her connection with creative thought is specified in another hymn. But there are several new aspects; thus, as a river, she is now listed with Gaṅgā and Yamunā, which suggests that the Aryans have meanwhile moved farther to the east (this may also be the basis for the triveṇī concept, i.e. the traditional view that the Sarasvatī invisibly joins the two other rivers at their confluence in Prayag). Another list contains the three rivers Sindhu (here certainly the Indus), Sarasvatī, and Sarayū, which suggests that she was now being identified with a river between the Indus in the west and the Sarayū in the east (if the Sarayū is the same river as in the later Rāmāyaṇa ).

A completely new context is provided for her in a hymn (ṚV. 10.17) belonging to the Yama cycle (ṚV. 10.14–18); here she is invoked to take part in the death ritual and to provide innocuous refreshments (anamīvāíṣaḥ) as well as wealth and prosperity for the participants, when they have invited the ancestors.

In Ṛgveda 10.131, the power of healing (which is otherwise associated with waters in general) is ascribed to Sarasvatī, together with the Aśvins. The hymn presents a detail of Indra’s conflict with the demon Namuci, which is otherwise not mentioned in the Ṛgveda: after drinking deeply, Indra is cured by Sarasvatī. This provides the germ for a myth told in the Śatapathabrāhmaṇa, explaining the formulas (mantras) used at the sautrāmaṇī ritual (see yajña ), and identifying the surāma drink as involving súrā (brandy).

To sum up the evidence from the Ṛgveda: Sarasvatī is, as a minor deity, not celebrated very often, with only two hymns and a few three-verse strophes exclusively dedicated to her. In a ritual context (the Āprī hymns), she is invoked laconically along with two other goddesses. Otherwise she is imagined mainly as the goddess of the rivers, not only providing nourishment and fertility, but also sharing some functions with other gods. In a few places she is simply a river, but the geographical location cannot be fixed with certainty. Though identified as a patron of those who perform the soma hymns (ṚV. 9.67.32), there is not yet any more direct connection with speech (vāc); but she is significantly associated with the creative thought or insight (dhī), which is needed for the composition of hymns and may be the starting point for her development as the goddess of knowledge. There is no real myth connected with her, but she is mentioned in connection with the Vṛtra myth and Indra’s conflict with Namuci.

Sarasvatī in the Other Vedic Saṃhitās

In the Atharvaveda, in about ten hymns (AV. 4.4; 5.23; 6.3, 89; 7.68; 14.2; 16.4; 19.31), Sarasvatī is approached for various purposes, such as to obtain virility, cure worms, protect riches, and confer progeny and welfare, sometimes together with other deities; her nature as a river is no longer evident. There are two places where she is qualified (like dhī in the Ṛgveda) as “mind-yoked” (manoyúj) and closely associated with speech (vāc), but both are still separate powers (AV. 5.7.4; 5.10.8).

As for the Yajurveda, Sarasvatī appears mainly in the mantras accompanying the sautrāmaṇī ritual (VājSa. 19–21), which is performed in order to restore the sacrificer’s health after consuming too much of the soma juice of liquor (súrā), or generally as a means of warding off various manifestations of evil in his personal sphere. In this ritual, the myth alluded to in Ṛgveda 10.131 is presented with some variations: the Aśvins and Sarasvatī give the soma, pressed by Namuci and containing his strength, to Indra (VājSa. 20 59), or they press the soma themselves (VājSa. 19.34), or Sarasvatī yields it (VājSa. 20.55); the oblation strengthens Indra and destroys the power that was with Namuci (VājSa. 20.68). In several formulas the three protagonists are invoked together, or are presented with the sacrificial offering – Indra with a bull, the Aśvins with a he-goat, and Sarasvatī with a ram. In others, the Aśvins and Sarasvatī are presented as acting together on behalf of Indra, and in a few mantras Sarasvatī is grouped with Iḷā and Bhāratī, as in the Śrī hymns of the Ṛgveda. Her function is defined by the context of the ritual: she helps in restoring Indra’s strength, not, like the Aśvins, with a medicine, but by using speech (vāc). As in the Atharvaveda, she is sometimes also named side by side with Vāc (“Speech”), but both are not yet explicitly identified.

Sarasvatī in the Brāhmaṇas

Further elaboration of the myth in which Indra is healed by the Aśvins and Sarasvatī (going back to ṚV. 10.131) is found in the Śatapathabrāhmaṇa, where it is combined with the myth of Indra killing Namuci (alluded to in ṚV. 8.41.13 [= VājSa. 19.71]). It is in the Śatapathabrāhmaṇa that Sarasvatī is expressly equated with Vāc.

This is presented as a new discovery of a secret identity that so far had evidently not been obvious. Vāc, who is celebrated as a deity only in one late hymn of the Ṛgveda (10.125), is the basis of all knowledge, especially in an oral society, where it can be communicated and preserved only in the medium of the spoken word; thus speech is the “mother of the Vedas,” if not even their embodiment. Apart from that, Vāc plays a central role in several myths found in the Brāhmaṇas. It seems, however, that her name is not yet interchangeable with that of Sarasvatī, which does not appear in the stories. Nevertheless, these myths have influenced later conceptions of Sarasvatī, as found in the epics and Purāṇas. Thus, as in the myth about the first purchase of soma, where the gods create Vāc in the shape of a woman, in order to offer her to the gandharvas, in exchange for the soma that is at that time staying with them, she appears as a beautiful young woman, the form in which Sarasvatī is depicted later in Indian art. In several versions of the myth (see Ludvik, 2007, 73ff.), Vāc does not simply return to the gods (as she had promised), but there is a competition for her between the two parties, in which the gandharvas recite mantras, whereas the gods invite her with songs and win her by that, “therefore women are fond of the one who sings.” In the Śatapathabrāhmaṇa version, the gods even create and play the vīṇā (type of lute), the stringed instrument that becomes one of the most important attributes of Sarasvatī in Indian art. It seems that at some point after the Brahmanical period, Vāc (herself a latecomer in the pantheon of the Ṛgveda) was absorbed into Sarasvatī, who took over her functions as well as part of her myths.

Whereas in the Yajurveda and the corresponding Brāhmaṇa passages Sarasvatī is, as a deity, only present in the sautrāmaṇī ritual and its mythological explanations, she is in the Brāhmaṇas also referred to as a river, along the course of which sacrificial sessions (sattra) are held, starting with the place where the river disappears into the sand (called Vinaśana), and following it up to its source (called Plakṣaprāsravaṇa); this course is said to be the path of the gods and to lead to heaven. One particular legend is connected with the Sarasvatī in the Aitareyabrāhmaṇa (12.9), about how Kavaṣa Ailūṣa, being the son of a slave girl who was expelled into the desert by the participants of a sattra, “saw” the aponaptrīya hymn (identified as ṚV. 10.30, addressed to the waters and their “grandson” Apāṃ Napāt) when he was dying with thirst; this caused the Sarasvatī to flow to him, and he became a famous seer ( ṛṣi ), respected by those who had expelled him.

Sarasvatī in the Mahābhārata

This new identity as a geographically fixed sacred river is the basis for the development of the custom of pilgrimage, as it is for the first time described in the Mahābhārata (9.29–53). Instead of mobile sacrificial sessions (yātsattra), carried out along the river, now various places on the banks of the river (tīrthas) were visited, partly hermitages that were inhabited by famous sages, and partly places whose sacredness was established through a connection with gods, sacrifices, myths, and legends of old, often going back to vedic lore.

The first of such pilgrimages along the Sarasvatī is described in the ninth book of the Mahābhārata, performed by Kṛṣṇa’s brother Balarāma during the great battle between the Pāṇḍavas and Kauravas, in which he does not want to take sides with either of the hostile parties. The narrative of the witness Saṃjaya is interrupted here by a long digression in which the general narrator of the Mahābhārata satisfies his own listener’s sudden curiosity about pilgrimage. The preparations for Balarāma’s pilgrimage reflect the older practice of “mobile sacrifices”: he is accompanied by a multitude of performing priests and Brahmans and takes along sacrificial fires and sacrificial gifts, which he “collects from everywhere,” in order to give them to Brahmans at the various sacred places on the banks of the Sarasvatī.

His pilgrimage starts at Prabhāsa (Prabhasakshetra), the confluence of the Sarasvatī with the ocean according to the Mahābhārata, and ends in the north of Kurukṣetra (Kurukshetra). He visits many holy sites, at some of which famous sages gave up their lives and went to heaven, through the purifying power of the Sarasvatī, where kings attained Brahmanhood, or where deities achieved their special status. Some places are connected with vedic legends, such as Trita’s “well” (alluded to in the Ṛgveda, but provided with a more elaborate legend here), from which the Sarasvatī is said to have reappeared, after disappearing at Vinaśana.

The confluence of seven “Sarasvatīs” with different names and origins at the Saptasārasvata tīrtha is also reminiscent of the concept of the seven rivers in the Ṛgveda. Other legends with vedic roots are the story of Indra and Namuci, or the story of Dadhīca’s bones from which Indra’s weapon for the fight with Vṛtra was fashioned, and so on. There are also new stories, among them the legends about Viśvāmitra. In a few stories, Sarasvatī is a protagonist herself, such as in the legend about the Sārasvata tīrtha, where she gives birth to Sārasvata, the son of Dadhīca, who teaches the Vedas after his father’s death, or in one of the stories told about the Sthāṇu tīrtha, the place where Sarasvatī becomes involved in Viśvāmitra’s hostile action against Vasiṣṭha. Ordered by Viśvāmitra to fetch Vasiṣṭha, in order to kill him, the river takes the bank with Vasiṣṭha away towards Viśvāmitra, but being afraid of committing Brahman murder, she carries him farther and is consequently cursed by Viśvāmitra to be mixed with blood (a reminiscence of the soma mixed with blood from Namuci’s head, in the myth that explains the sautrāmaṇī ritual in the Śatapathabrāhmaṇa). In this legend Sarasvatī appears not only as a torrential river, but also as a timid woman, “pale and trembling” from fear of Viśvāmitra’s curse, as well as from fear of the sin of possible Brahman murder, whereas in Vasiṣṭha’s short hymn, she is visualized as a goddess and identified with vāṇī (speech), amongst other feminine abstract nouns. Some of these places of pilgrimage along the Sarasvatī are also mentioned in the Vanaparvan of the Mahābhārata (3.81.91–133), mainly those situated in or around Pṛthūdaka (modern-day Pehoa; see Handa, 2004), with information about the kind of merit that is obtained by bathing there.

Outside the pilgrimage context, the Sarasvatī is mentioned as a site in Kurukṣetra where parts of the narrative take place (e.g. the Pāṇḍavas spend the first period of their exile in the Kāmyaka forest at the Sarasvatī).

Whereas most of the occurrences of the name Sarasvatī in the Mahābhārata refer to the river, in the context of the description of holy places, there are also references to Sarasvatī as a goddess not connected with a river, but with voice/speech or knowledge. Thus Yājñavalkya, the famous upanishadic philosopher, “receives” the two main texts of the White Yajurveda, the Vājasaneyisaṃhitā and the Śatapathabrāhmaṇa from the sun god, after Sarasvatī has entered his open mouth, presumably to give him a voice (in ch. 318 of the 12th book, the Śāntiparvan, of the Mahābhārata). In Mahābhārata 12.122.25, Sarasvatī is brought into connection with the administration of justice (daṇḍanīti). In Mahābhārata 3.184, she is as beautiful as she is wise and eloquent, giving instructions to a sage about how best to perform one’s duty (dharma), about the sacrifice called agnihotra ( yajña ), and about final release (mokṣa; liberation). This passage does not seem to be recognizably connected with any vedic source, but seems instead to be aimed at promoting an ideal that is prominent in later parts of the Mahābhārata, that of making generous donations. As for Sarasvatī’s beautiful form (the origin of which may be found in the myths of the Brāhmaṇas about personified speech), it is comparable with that of Sāvitrī, the beautiful and knowledgeable heroine of a legend also told in the third book of the Mahābhārata (3.277–283), who saved her husband from death through her wisdom and cleverness. (In puranic iconography, both are presented as wives of Brahmā, the god of the Vedas.)

There are also quite a few shorter references to Sarasvatī as a goddess, especially in the 12th book, but also spread over earlier books. Thus she appears to Śvetaketu in human shape (MBh. 3.132.2), she is Kṛṣṇa’s tongue (MBh. 6.6.56), or she is created by Vāsudeva together with the Vedas (MBh. 6.63.5); she is also called the mother of the Vedas, staying with Nārāyaṇa, like other female deities (MBh. 13.326.52). In Viṣṇu’s self-description, she appears as a synonym of true speech, originating from Brahmā (MBh. 12.330.10), or she is the deity of the faculty of speech in a philosophical context (MBh. 12.231.8). Normally she is more associated with Viṣṇu-Kṛṣṇa, but in book 8 (MBh. 8.24.75), she appears in an allegorical description of Śiva’s chariot in the Tripura war (beside other abstract concepts like karman, satya , etc.).

By the end of the process of the composition of the Mahābhārata, Sarasvatī seems to have been integrated into the Hindu pantheon as one of its minor deities, ruling over speech as the means of conveying traditional knowledge consisting of the Vedas and Śāstras, which she often inspires by entering the mouth or body of a famous sage. It is in this function that she is invoked at the beginning of each book in the vulgate edition of the Mahābhārata, and at the beginning of many later Sanskrit texts. In a few places she appears in a beautiful human shape. She is not yet connected with music or musical instruments, as in later Hindu images.

At the same time, however, she is still referred to as a (sacred) river, sometimes also acting as a human female or assuming the roles of a mother or a wife (of different husbands). But unlike Gaṅgā, whose role remains that of a personified or deified river, Sarasvatī’s role as a river goddess becomes insignificant in comparison with her new role as the goddess of learning and culture in general.

Sarasvatī in the Purāṇas

In the period following the redaction of the epics – that is, during roughly the 1st millennium CE – the basic figures and myths of the pantheon of classical Hinduism became fully established, with the Purāṇas as the main textual sources, and sculptures and paintings of Indian art as iconographical documents, supporting and supplementing one another. In the Purāṇas, the functions, myths, and images of Sarasvatī that were established in one or other of the earlier texts reappear in various combinations, either as a synthesis of previous concepts more or less vaguely related to Sarasvatī, or providing a new diversity of connections and attributes.

As in the Mahābhārata, Sarasvatī is, in many Purāṇas, still an important river in Kurukṣetra, providing the scene for many stories about famous kings, sages, sacrifices, and so on: Vyāsa composed here the Mahābhārata and received the Bhāgavatapurāṇa from Nārada. She appears, of course, in various lists of rivers, but there are also Māhātmyas of tīrthas connected with her (e.g. in the Saromāhātmya of the Vāmanapurāṇa and in ch. 32 of the Sṛṣṭikhaṇḍa of the Padmapurāṇa); a whole text especially dedicated to her is the Sarasvatīpurāṇa, dated around 1200 CE (see Dave, 1968). One of these places is Prabhāsa, the confluence of the Sarasvatī with the ocean in the Mahābhārata, where she is said to have carried the dangerous submarine fire to the ocean, according to a myth told in the Brahmapurāṇa (110, 202–210) and the Skandapurāṇa (7.33). The Skandapurāṇa (7.34.32; 7.40.5) also refers to two images of Sarasvatī established near Prabhāsa; in one she is depicted carrying the fire. The submarine fire recurs in one of the few attestations to Sarasvatī in the Pali canon (Theragāthā 1104), where a monk aspires to cross the difficult rivers Gaṅgā, Yamunā, and Sarasvatī, as well as the subterranean and submarine worlds.

Within the new developments of the Hindu pantheon, Sarasvatī’s place as a deity is defined partly by her male counterpart within the triad of gods: as Lakṣmī belongs to Viṣṇu and Pārvatī/Umā to Śiva, Sarasvatī is associated with Brahmā, not only as his mind-born daughter, but also as his wife. Since Brahmā not only is the essence of the Veda personified, but has also taken over the role of Prajāpati as the creator, the myth of the primordial incest between Prajāpati and Uṣas/Dyaus or between Prajāpati and Vāc in the Brāhmaṇas has in Matsyapurāṇa, Bhāgavatapurāṇa, and elsewhere been transferred to Brahmā and Sarasvatī (called Śatarūpā in the Matsyapurāṇa, Vāc in the Bhāgavatapurāṇa). As Brahmā’s wife, she is often called Brahmāṇī; sometimes she has Sāvitrī (as the personification of the most sacred mantra of the Ṛgveda) or Gāyatrī (as the sacred meter of this mantra) as her co-wife, and sometimes she is also identified with them. Her connection with Viṣṇu in some places of the Mahābhārata is not forgotten, either: thus she appears as Viṣṇu’s tongue in the Matsyapurāṇa, Vāmanapurāṇa, and Brahmapurāṇa. According to a myth told in the relatively late Brahmavaivartapurāṇa (2.2.54ff.), she was the first wife of Viṣṇu, but after quarrelling with her co-wife Gaṅgā, she was transferred to Brahmā, whereas Gaṅgā was transferred to Śiva; both goddesses cursed each other in turn to become rivers (see Gupta, 1962).

At the same time, Sarasvatī is often part of a group of female “deities” – actually personified abstract qualities or ethical values that are feminine in Sanskrit, such as tuṣṭi (contentment), puṣṭi (prosperity), kīrti (renown), kānti (loveliness), śānti (peace), smṛti (remembrance), mati (thought), hrī (bashfulness), śrī (splendor), and so on, or as one of the seven mothers (saptamātṛs); she is also included in the list of śaktis created by Śiva, for example in the Brahmāṇḍapurāṇa, or is considered to be one aspect of Devī, the Great Goddess, the from whom she emerges in the Devīmāhātmya of the Mārkaṇḍeyapurāṇa and with whom she is also sometimes identified (e.g. in the Devībhāgavatapurāṇa, where she kills the buffalo-demon).

When Sarasvatī appears actually on her own, it is as the goddess of knowledge and learning, of eloquent speech, taking her abode on the tongue or in the mouth of sages and poets (including even the four birds that appear in the frame story of the Mārkaṇḍeyapurāṇa). Whether she is implied in the disembodied heavenly “voice” that resolves problematic situations (e.g. Brahmapurāṇa, ch. 126, where it is identified with Sarasvatī) is not always made clear: such a heavenly voice is already found in substories of the Mahābhārata, like that of Śakuntalā.

Her connection with music or with her specific instrument, the vīṇā, which is perhaps her most well-known attribute in Hindu art, is in early puranic texts rarely encountered. A “great lute” (mahāvīṇā) is mentioned, in a passage common to Vāyupurāṇa and Brahmāṇḍapurāṇa, as Sarasvatī’s gift to Skanda at his inauguration, but how she had come by it does not seem to be explained anywhere in the Purāṇas. In iconographic descriptions she is in some Purāṇas characterized as holding a vīṇā: Matsyapurāṇa 66.10, Agnipurāṇa 50.16, and Viṣṇudharmottarapurāṇa, but in others the vīṇā is not mentioned. A reference to Sarasvatī as patroness of music is found in the Matsyapurāṇa (66.8), where sacred texts and sciences, as well as music and dance, are stated to be inseparable from her. It is in the Mārkaṇḍeyapurāṇa (23.38ff.) that she is first connected with musical knowledge in considerable detail: praised by the nāga king Aśvatara, at the origin of the river Sarasvatī, as the imperishable syllable oṃ , she appears to him and grants him, as a boon, the knowledge of all sounds, defined by technical musical terms (seven notes, scales, songs, modulations, 49 rhythmical patterns, and three modes).

There is little evidence of the establishment of Sarasvatī worship in early Purāṇas (Vasiṣṭha’s short hymn in the Mahābhārata or King Aśvatara’s Sarasvatīstotra [Hymn to Sarasvatī] in the Mārkaṇḍeyapurāṇa are limited to their narrative context). A rite during which hymns addressed to Sarasvatī were recited is mentioned in Mārkaṇḍeyapurāṇa chapter 72; it served to cure one from dumbness inflicted by a curse. It is in the Matsyapurāṇa that Viṣṇu in his incarnation as a fish describes the “observance centering on Sarasvatī” (sārasvatavrata) in chapter 66, which is also complemented by an early iconographic visualization of Sarasvatī with her well-known attributes: vīṇā (stick-zither), string of beads, water pot, and book, mounted on a goose or resting on a lotus. These later Purāṇas which include some references to Sarasvatī worship often give an account of how Sarasvatī was worshipped earlier by the main deities, in order to substantiate her importance (e.g. Śiva at the Sthāṇutīrtha in the Saromāhātmya of the Vāmanapurāṇa, Viṣṇu at the Prācīnatīrtha in Padmapurāṇa). In the Brahmavaivartapurāṇa chapter 1 it is Brahmā who first worships Sarasvatī, before gods, sages, and men do so, but in chapter 4 it is Kṛṣṇa who establishes Sarasvatī worship ( pūjā ), including stotra (praise), dhyāna (meditation), a short mantra, and a kavaca (a protective charm). Worship of Sarasvatī is also recommended in the Skandapurāṇa (7.34) and in the Sarasvatīrahasyopaniṣad. In southern and western India, a sarasvatīpūjā is the first part of the navarātri (or daśaharā) festival at the autumnal equinox (see Underhill, 1921, 53f.).

Nowadays she is, of course, regularly invoked at the beginning of music lessons and musical performances, including dance performances, and also at academic events. She often appears under the names Bhāratī (taken from the Ṛgveda and understood as another name of speech) and Śāradā (attested in the Skandapurāṇa and invoked by the Jain Mallinātha in his commentary on chapter 4 of Kālidāsa’s Raghuvaṃśa).

To sum up, in some Purāṇas, Sarasvatī appears merely as a river (Harivaṃśa, Viṣṇupurāṇa, etc.). As a goddess she is often associated with the main gods: Brahmā is thought of as her father, or her husband, or both; with Viṣṇu she is mostly connected as being situated on his tongue. In some places Śiva appears as the creator of her and other powers (śaktis); similarly, she emerges from, and acts on behalf of, Devī (e.g. in the Devīmāhātmya of the Mārkaṇḍeyapurāṇa or in the Devībhāgavatapurāṇa). She is often listed with other concepts, abstract qualities, or values of feminine gender, including other deities of a similar kind. On her own she is worshipped as the goddess of speech; in a few Purāṇas her relationship to music is highlighted as well. Whereas, after the identification of the rgvedic river-goddess with speech/knowledge in the Brāhmaṇas, the river Sarasvatī and the goddess of speech and learning are hardly connected any more in the epics and early Purāṇas, both Sarasvatīs are identified again in later Purāṇas, but in a reverse direction: the river is conceived as a goddess, but the goddess takes (or is cursed to take) the shape of a river as one of her manifestations on earth. Other manifestations are the images created in her name and shape, reflected in puranic accounts as well as in Indian art.

Sarasvatī in Indian Art

Iconographic descriptions of Sarasvatī in the Matsyapurāṇa and the Viṣṇudharmottarapurāṇa have been mentioned above: she appears as a bright and beautiful young female, adorned with various kinds of ornaments and jewelry, mounted on a goose or seated on a lotus, with her attributes consisting of a book (pustaka), beaded necklace (akṣamālā), water pot (kamaṇḍalu), and lute (vīṇā). Her mount, the goose, she probably owes to her connection with Brahmā, likewise the book, representing the Vedas and relating to her function as goddess of speech and traditional knowledge. The pitcher may indicate her connection with water (according to Skandapurāṇa 6.46.18, it contains celestial water); it is also interpreted as containing the drink of immortality (amṛta), which would relate to her healing function (as found in the context of the vedic sautrāmaṇī formulas and ritual). The beaded necklace may have been taken over from Brahmā, as well; or it may have a bearing on the necklace (hāra), which she presents in the Bhāgavatapurāṇa first to King Pṛthu, and then to the beautiful Ramā (who is Śrī-Lakṣmī) churned out of the milk ocean during Viṣṇu’s incarnation ( avatāra ) as tortoise. According to the Viṣṇudharmottarapurāṇa, she is four armed, but there is certainly a problem of how she can hold the vīṇā (for which she needs two hands) as well as at least three more attributes (according to the Skandapurāṇa, she also holds a lotus, which is corroborated by early sculptures). Either some of the attributes have to be omitted (or delegated to smaller accompanying figures), or the number of arms has to be increased. Both solutions are attested in Indian art. The Agnipurāṇa (50.16) leaves out the water pot; so do most of the more modern depictions. Likewise, the lotus and the beaded necklace may be used alternately. At the same time, in some images one hand is left without an attribute, but appears in a specific mudrā, usually the gesture of granting boons.

The first sculpture clearly identifiable as Sarasvatī (because of the inscription on the pedestal) is a Jaina image, attesting to her popularity among the Jains already at that early time. She is two armed, holding a beaded necklace in her right hand and a manuscript in her left. A water pot is provided by one of the two small figures at her sides (Pal, 1994, 26). Other two-armed Jain figures show her with a book and a lotus (Ludvik, 2007, 241ff.), whereas a later four-armed statue presents her with lotus, book, and water pot; and there is another one with two lotuses and a beaded necklace, but the arm that may have held the book is broken off (Pal, 1994, 172f.). Sarasvatī does not seem to be equipped with a vīṇā in earlier Jain sculptures. This is not so with the earliest Hindu sculptures (6th cent.), which are two armed, holding (and playing) the lute and thus displaying Sarasvatī’s function as goddess of music (Ludvik, 2007, 238ff.). When she is depicted with four arms, there is more scope for other attributes, as in the sculpture from Mathura (10th cent.) where she holds a beaded necklace and a book in her additional arms; a goose or swan is sitting in front of her (Ludvik, 2007, 248, see also fig. 16). In more-modern images she is depicted with a peacock as her mount, which replaces the goose inherited from Brahmā. Possibly this connects her with Skanda-Kārttikeya, to whom she is said to have presented a great lute (mahāvīṇā) in the Vāyupurāṇa and Brahmāṇḍapurāṇa. It is certainly a bird cherished by classical Sanskrit poetry, standing for beauty and for the advanced spring season, which is imbued with the sentiment of love.

As the patroness of the fine arts, including poetry and music, Sarasvatī is venerated by poets and musicians alike, as well as by scholars who pay homage to her as the origin of science.

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