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Saraswati- Edward Moor

In the Asiatic Miscellany, Vol. I and in Sir W Jones’s Works, Vol.XIII. 315, will be found a spirited hymn, addressed to this goddess. From the argument prefixed to it I extract the following passages.– "The Hindu goddesses are uniformly represented as the subordinate powers of their respective lords: Thus Lakshmi, the consort of Vishnu the Preserver, is the goddess of abundance and prosperity; Bhava’ni, the wife of Mah’ade’va, is the genial power of fecundity; and Saraswati, whose husband was the Creator Brahma, possesses the powers of Imagination and Invention, which may justly be termed creative. She is, therefore, adored as the patroness of the fine arts, especially of Music and Rhetoric; as the inventress of the Sanskrit language, of the Devanagiri characters, and of the sciences which writing perpetuates: So that her attributes correspond with those of Minerva Musica, in Greece or Italy, who invented the flute, and presided over literature. In this character she is addressed in the ode; and particularly as the Goddess of Harmony, since the Hindus usually paint her with a musical instrument in her hand. The seven notes, an artful combination of which constitutes Music, and variously affects the passions, are feigned to be her earliest production. And the greatest part of the hymn exhibits a correct delineation of the Ragmala, or Necklace of Musical Modes, which may be considered as the most pleasing invention of the ancient Hindus, and the most beautiful union of painting with poetical mythology and the genuine theory of music.¹"

© "The Hindu Pantheon" by Edward Moor, published (2002) by Indogo Books and Cosmo Publications, 24-B, Ansari Road, Darya Ganj, New Delhi 110 002. Reprinted with permission.

1 "Saraswati by the standard mythological authorities is the wife of Brahma and the goddess presiding over letters and arts. The Vaishnavas of Bengal have a popular legend that she was the wife of Vishnu as were also Lakshmi and Ganga. The ladies disagreed, Saraswati, like the other prototype of learned ladies, Minerva, being something of a termagant and Vishnu finding that one wife was as much as even a god could manage transferred Saraswati to Brahma and Ganga to Siva and contented himself with Lakshmi alone. It is worthy of remark that Saraswati is represented as of a white color, without any superfluity of limbs and not unfrequently of a graceful figure, wearing a slender crescent on her brow and sitting on a lotos." Works of H H Wilson, II. 187. —Ed.

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