Vedic Mythology c5.s3.2

c5.s3.2

The Sarasvatī is, however, more greatly celebrated than any other river. But though the personification in this case goes much further than in the others, the connexion of the goddess with the river is in the RV. always present to the minds of the poets. Sarasvatī is lauded in three hymns of the RV. and in numerous detached verses. Sarasvatī, Sarayu, and Sindhu are invoked as great streams (10, 64^9) and elsewhere (10, 75^5) Gaṅgā, Yamunā, Sarasvatī, Śutudrī, Paruṣṇī, and others known and unknown, altogether twenty-one, are addressed. Kings and peoples living on the banks of the Sarasvatī are referred to (7, 96^2; 8, 21^). Sarasvatī, an iron fort, flows with fertile flood, a stream (*sindhu*) surpassing all other waters in greatness; she alone of rivers appeared pure, flowing from the mountains, from¹ the (celestial) ocean (7, 95^{1. 2}, cp. 5, 43^). She tears away with her mighty waves the peaks of mountains, and her immense and impetuous flood moves roaring (6, 61^{2. 8}). She is distinguished by greatness among the great, she is the most active of the active, and is implored not to withhold her milk (6, 61^). The poet prays that he may not be removed from her to fields which are strange (6, 61^). She has seven sisters and is sevenfold (6, 61^{10. 12}). She is one of seven, a mother of streams² (7, 36^6). She is the best of mothers, of rivers, and of goddesses (2, 41^). She is called *pāvīravī*, an epithet (applied also to *tanyatu*, 'thunder', in 10, 65^) probably meaning 'daughter of lightning'³, and is said (6, 49^7) to be the wife of a hero (probably Sarasvat). She fills the terrestrial regions and the wide atmospheric space and occupies three abodes (6, 61^{11. 12}). She is invoked to descend from the sky, from the great mountain, to the sacrifice (5, 43^). The last three passages (cp. also 7, 95^2) seem to allude to the notion of a celestial origin, like that of Gaṅgā in post-Vedic mythology. She is once called *asuryā* or divine (7, 96^1). The goddess comes to the sacrifice on the same chariot as the Fathers and seats herself on the sacrificial grass (10, 17^{8. 9}). Even here she must be conceived as the river goddess, for in the following two verses the waters are invoked to cleanse from defilement.