Sarasvati/es

Sandstone sculpture of Sarasvati, India (10th century)

Painting of Sarasvati, unknown artist, India (19th century)

La Madre Divina en su manifestación como Sarasvati es la shakti de Brahma. En la tradición hindú, Brahma es conocido como el Creador y se corresponde con Dios Padre de la Trinidad occidental. Es el Legislador Divino, la fuente de todo conocimiento. Juntos, Brahma y Sarasvati son la encarnación de la fuerza cósmica.

Atributos

Sarasvati es conocida como la Diosa de la Palabra. Se la identifica con Vac, la Palabra. Representa la elocuencia y expresa la sabiduría de la Ley. Es la Madre-Instructora para aquellos de nosotros que amamos la Ley revelada por Brahma, y también es la facultad de volición, la voluntad y la motivación de ser la Ley en acción. Sarasvati representa la unión de poder e inteligencia desde la cual surge la creación organizada.

In the book Symbolism in Hinduism, A. Parthasarathy notes that the name Sarasvati literally means “the one who gives the essence of our own Self.” Sarasvati is sometimes represented with four hands, sitting on a lotus. She holds the sacred scriptures in one hand and a lotus in another. With the remaining two hands, she plays the Indian lute (veena).

Parthasarathy writes: “The Goddess, therefore, represents the ideal guru.... ‘Sitting on the lotus’ symbolises that the teacher is well established in the subjective experience of the Truth. ‘Holding the Scriptures in her hand’ indicates that she upholds that the knowledge of the Scriptures alone can take us to the Truth." Parthasarathy says that Sarasvati’s playing of the lute suggests “that a truly qualified teacher tunes up the mind and intellect of the seeker and draws out of him the music and melody of life.”

According to scholar David Frawley, in an esoteric sense Sarasvati “represents the stream of wisdom, the free flow of the knowledge of consciousness.” She is called the Flowing One, the source of creation by the Word.

Sarasvati also represents purity and wears white. David Kinsley, Professor of Religious Studies at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, explains:

The predominant themes in Sarasvati’s appearance are purity and transcendence. She is almost always said to be pure white like snow, the moon, or the kunda flower.... Her garments are said to be fiery in their purity....

Sarasvati’s transcendent nature ... is also suggested in her vehicle, the swan. The swan is a symbol of spiritual transcendence and perfection in Hinduism.... Sarasvati, astride her swan, suggests a dimension of human existence that rises above the physical, natural world. Her realm is one of beauty, perfection, and grace; it is a realm created by artistic inspiration, philosophic insight, and accumulated knowledge, which have enabled human beings to so refine their natural world that they have been able to transcend its limitations. Sarasvati astride her swan beckons human beings to continued cultural creation and civilized perfection.... She not only underlies the world and is its creator but is the [very] means to transcend the world.

Sarasvati está asociada con el habla, la poesía, la música y la cultura, y es conocida como la Diosa del Aprendizaje y la Patrona de las Artes y la Música. Es reverenciada tanto por hindúes como por budistas. Para los budistas es la consorte de Manjushri, el bodhisattva de la sabiduría. Los budistas apelan a Manjushri pidiendo inteligencia, sabiduría y maestría sobre la enseñanza, poder de exposición, elocuencia y memoria. Él trabaja con el Señor Maitreya. Los dos son representados a veces con el Buda Gautama, formando un trío en el que Manjushri representa el aspecto de la sabiduría y Maitreya el aspecto de la compasión de la enseñanza budista. Como Sarasvati, Manjushri trae el don de la iluminación.

The river Sarasvati

In the earliest Hindu texts, the Vedas, Sarasvati is a river goddess. The Vedas say that Sarasvati was the greatest river in India. For years the Sarasvati was believed to have been a myth, but an archaeological survey in 1985 found an ancient riverbed that matched the description of the Sarasvati. It was a great river, four to six miles wide for much of its length. It flowed westward from the Himalayas into the sea. Frawley believes that the Sarasvati was the main site of habitation at the time the Vedas were composed thousands of years ago.

Frawley says that the Sarasvati, “like the later Ganges, symbolizes the Sushumna, the river of spiritual knowledge, the current that flows [through the spinal canal] through the seven chakras of the subtle body. She is not only the Milky Way or river of Heaven, inwardly she is the river of true consciousness that flows into this world.”

The Rigveda calls Sarasvati “the best mother, the best river, [and] the best Goddess.” It also says, “Sarasvati like a great ocean appears with her ray, she rules all inspirations.”

Her sacred “seed syllable,” or bija, is Aim (pronounced ah-eem). A bija mantra encapsulates the essence of a cosmic being, of a principle or a chakra. Sarasvati’s mantra is Om Aim Sarasvatye Namaha.

See also

Brahma

Sources

Mark L. Prophet and Elizabeth Clare Prophet, The Masters and Their Retreats, s.v. “Sarasvati, Shakti of Brahma.”