[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [Reference works](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference) › [A Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology and Religion, Geography, History, and Literature](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference.dowson-1879) › c5.1620 # A Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology and Religion, Geography, History, and Literature c5.1620 A Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology and Religion, Geography, History, and Literature c5.1620 - **Language:** English ### [c5.1620](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference.dowson-1879.c5.1620) SARASWATĪ. ‘Watery, elegant.’ In the Vedas, Saraswatī is primarily a river, but is celebrated in the hymns both as a river and a deity. The Saraswatī river was one boundary of Brahmāvartta, the home of the early Āryans, and was to them, in all likelihood, a sacred river, as the Ganges has long been to their descendants. As a river goddess, Saraswatī is lauded for the fertilising and purifying powers of her waters, and as the bestower of fertility, fatness, and wealth. Her position as Vāch, the goddess of speech, finds no mention in the Rig-veda, but is recognised by the Brāhmanas and the Mahā-bhārata. Dr. Muir endeavours to account for her acquisition of this character. He say, “When once the river had acquired a divine character, it was quite natural that she should be regarded as the patroness of the ceremonies which were celebrated on the margin of her holy waters, and that her direction and blessing should be invoked as essential to their proper performance and success. The connection into which she was thus brought with sacred rites may have led to the further step of imagining her to have an influence on the composition of the hymns which formed so important a part of the proceedings, and of identifying her with Vāch, the goddess of speech.” In later times Saraswatī is the wife of Brahmā, the goddess of speech and learning, inventress of the Sanskrit language and Deva-nāgarī letters, and patroness of the arts and sciences. “She is represented as of a white colour, without any superfluity of limbs, and not unfrequently of a graceful figure, wearing a slender crescent on her brow and sitting on a lotus.”—Wilson. The same authority states that “the Vaishnavas of Bengal have a popular legend that she was the wife of Vishnu, as were also Lakshmī and Gangā. The ladies disagreed; Saraswatī, like the other prototype of learned ladies, Minerva, being something of a termagant, and Vishnu finding that one wife was as much as he could manage, transferred Saraswatī to Brahmā and Gaṅgā to Siva, and contented himself with Lakshmī alone. (See Vāch.) Other names of Saraswatī are Bhāratī, Brāhmī, Pūt-kārī, Sāradā, Vāgīswarī. The river is now called Sarsuti. It falls from the Himālayas and is lost in the sands of the desert. In ancient times it flowed on to the sea. A passage in the \*Rig-veda\* says of it, “She who goes on pure from the mountains as far as the sea.”—\*Max Müller, Veda\*, 45. According to the Mahā-bhārata it was dried up by the curse of the sage Utathya (q.v.). See Sapta-sindhava. - [Previous: c5.1619](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference.dowson-1879.c5.1619) - [Next: c5.1621](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference.dowson-1879.c5.1621) - [Up: c5](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference.dowson-1879.c5) ## Cites (4) - [Mahābhārata](https://indike.org/pramana/in.lit.mahabharata.vyasa) — Vyāsa, Sanskrit - [Veda](https://indike.org/pramana/in.veda) — Sanskrit - [Ṛgvedasaṃhitā](https://indike.org/pramana/in.veda.samhita.rg) — Sanskrit - [Brāhmaṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/in.veda.brahmana) — Sanskrit --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference.dowson-1879.c5.1620](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference.dowson-1879.c5.1620) · Pramāṇa