Saraswati: Goddess of Knowledge and the Arts

Saraswati is the Hindu goddess of knowledge, learning, wisdom, music, the arts and speech. Students pray to her before exams, musicians before performances and writers before they begin to write. She is the consort of Brahma, the creator, and together with Lakshmi and Parvati she forms the Tridevi, the three great goddesses.

Her name is often explained as “she who has flowing waters” or “the one who flows”, linking her both to rivers and to the flow of speech and thought.

From river to goddess

Saraswati is one of the few deities who has been worshipped continuously since the time of the Rig Veda. There she is a mighty river goddess, praised as the best of mothers, rivers and goddesses. The Sarasvati river of the Vedas is often identified with the now largely dry Ghaggar-Hakra river system in north-west India and Pakistan, although the identification is debated.

Later Vedic texts identify Saraswati with Vach, the goddess of sacred speech. As the Vedas themselves were understood as sacred speech, Saraswati became the goddess of the knowledge they contain, and then of all learning and the arts.

How Saraswati is depicted

Saraswati is usually shown as a serene, beautiful woman dressed in white, seated on a white lotus beside a river. Her four arms hold:

A veena: a stringed instrument, representing music and the arts.
A book: usually understood as the Vedas, representing knowledge.
A rosary (mala): meditation and spiritual practice.
A pot of water: purity and the power to purify.

Her vehicle is the hamsa, a swan or goose. The hamsa is said to be able to separate milk from water, a symbol of the ability to tell the true from the false and the eternal from the passing. She is sometimes shown with a peacock, representing pride, which knowledge should overcome.

White, her colour, symbolises purity, truth and light. Unlike Lakshmi, Saraswati wears little jewellery, suggesting that knowledge, rather than material wealth, is her treasure.

Saraswati and Brahma

Saraswati is Brahma's consort and his creative power: Brahma creates the universe, but he needs knowledge to do so. In some stories she is born from Brahma himself. Her relationship with Brahma is less prominent in worship than those of Lakshmi with Vishnu or Parvati with Shiva, and she is often worshipped on her own.

Festivals

Vasant Panchami

Saraswati's main festival, Vasant Panchami, falls on the fifth day of the bright half of the month of Magha (January or February) and marks the arrival of spring. People wear yellow, the colour of mustard flowers in bloom, and offer yellow sweets. Schools and colleges, especially in eastern India, hold Saraswati Puja. Many families choose this day for vidyarambham, a ceremony in which a young child writes their first letters.

Navaratri

During Navaratri, the last three nights are often dedicated to Saraswati. In south India, books, musical instruments and tools are placed before her on the ninth day and are not used until the following morning, Vijayadashami, when learning begins anew.

Prayers

A widely recited prayer, the Saraswati Vandana, begins Ya kundendu tushara hara dhavala: “she who is as white as the jasmine, the moon and a garland of snow”. Many students recite a short prayer to Saraswati before studying.

Saraswati beyond Hinduism

Saraswati is also honoured in Jainism as a goddess of learning, and in Buddhism, where she travelled to East Asia. In Japan she is known as Benzaiten, a goddess of music, eloquence and water. Many temples and educational institutions across India bear her name.

Sources and further reading

David Kinsley, Hindu Goddesses: Visions of the Divine Feminine in the Hindu Religious Tradition (University of California Press, 1986), chapter 4.
Catherine Ludvik, Sarasvati: Riverine Goddess of Knowledge (Brill, 2007).