Saraswati- Hindu GodDeity"Goddess of Knowledge"

The River

In the Rigveda, Saraswati was not yet a goddess of books. She was a river. Rigveda 6.61 describes her as fierce, shattering mountain peaks with her waves and destroying enemies in her current. Rigveda 7.95 traces her course from the mountains to the sea. The poets called her "best of mothers, best of rivers, best of goddesses." The civilization that composed the Vedas lived along her banks and sang hymns to her waters.

The river vanished thousands of years ago, its channels dried beneath the desert. At Prayagraj, where the Ganga and Yamuna meet, the Saraswati is believed to flow still: invisible, subterranean, joining the confluence as a hidden third river.

The Creation of Form

When Brahma began to create the world, he could not give it shape. The Matsya Purana tells how he generated Saraswati from his own essence. She emerged white-robed, radiant as the full moon, carrying a veena. Brahma was captivated. He grew four faces so he could gaze at her from every direction, and a fifth face atop his head to watch her when she rose above him. Shiva severed the fifth head as punishment for Brahma's desire.

Saraswati gave Brahma the syllable Om, the sound from which all creation springs. She fashioned the metres through which the Vedas could be chanted and the alphabet through which thought could be written. The Brahmanda Purana names her Savitri when she assists Brahma with the sacred hymns, and the Padma Purana calls her mother of all four Vedas. Without her, Brahma's creative impulse would have had no form.

The Voice

By the Brahmana period, the river goddess had become the goddess of sacred speech. The Shatapatha Brahmana identifies Saraswati with Vak: when a priest chanted over the sacrificial fire, it was Vak who carried the words to the gods. A mantra spoken without her was noise. A mantra spoken through her reached heaven.