SARASVATI: The Flowing One
by Deanna McKinstry-Edwards
In the bright world, where
the light of the world opens, In the bright world, at the
furthest border of The Word, Sarasvati poured out her
rivering voices. Down, down, deeply down, the
syllables flowed from the something
that shines at the center of the world.
She came to
me when the waters of my life were frozen.
I think I’d heard Her name many years ago, but nothing took hold, and
perhaps I even heard Her call mine. Some
voices sound like the wind. Some like rain.
They rustle, they loosen, but its not yet their time to linger, so they
pass through you, time and again, rustling, loosening your mind until you can
hear and heed them in the language they speak.
I had some
exposure in my early days to stories of Goddesses, but I had not heard there
was a Goddess who moved the world by a word, a syllable, a voice. Fortunately, weather bristles in one’s psyche
when the time is right for all manner of voices and words to be heard, to
upend, to reconnect, to sing songs and retell stories long forgotten. These stories work like magnets tugging at
the personal story of each person’s life, wresting it from impoverished
moorings too isolated from the epic and collective human story, and too fixed
with nailed down notions to support the beneficent chaos which initiates birth
and creativity.
We
were destined to meet, Sarasvati and I, since I have been, an actress, a
singer, a writer, a devotee of breath churned into expression through melody
and words. For this is Her realm, the
domain of sound, singing, eloquent speech, and intuitive wisdom. Originally a
river goddess in the ancient Vedic texts, Sarasvati is the archetypal figure
who embodies wisdom through the flowing motion of sound and running water. Hers is the archetypal energy that compels us
to break loose from inhibiting forces and stuck places, especially those rutted
in our minds. She compels each of us to
loosen our notions and animate dialogues with ourselves, others, and all life,
continually moving our minds like leaves riding a river. It is not closure Sarasvati seeks, but
open-ended conversation.
To
meet Sarasvati, The Hindu Goddess of Speech, Sound, Music and Wisdom, is to
meet the holy rivers veined through the inner and outer landscapes of our
lives. “Sarasvati is the Word, and the Word is the way of The Gods.” (Calasso
239) writes Roberto Calasso in his lush and erotic book, Ka; Stories of the Mind and Gods
of India. “The Word, and these
waters, are the one help we have. We
shall follow the Word, so as to be able to leave it behind.” (Calasso 239) Beyond the Word, it was written in the Vedas,
was the center of the world. A
place known as “Only something that
shines.” (Calasso 239)
It was not
the fate of all Hindu goddesses to remain important in later Hinduism. But Sarasvati exemplified her own attributes
of change and transcendence, by representing a
wisdom which permeates all life, that being to remain open to and
flowing with life’s ever-changing nature.
Something primordial defines Sarasvati which extends beyond cultural
associations to cosmic tendencies and attributes, and this feature of her
archetypal zest is no doubt key to her continued survival and importance in
Hindu culture even today.
David R.
Kinsley, author of Hindu Goddesses, describes Sarasvati’s earliest appearance as a
river. She is
“no ordinary river.
Early Vedic references make it clear that the Sarasvati River originates
in heaven and flows down to earth. Physical contact with her earthly
manifestation, however, connects one with the awesome, heavenly, transcendent
dimension of the goddess and of reality in general.” (Kinsley 57)
Even before
Sarasvati The River and The Goddess flowed down from the celestial heavens,
another Goddess, her ancestral progenitor, quickened and fertilized the visible
and invisible aspects of the world through sound. Her name was Vac. The Goddess of voice. Of word.
“Queen of a thousand syllables…” (Calasso 238), “Vac was a power at the
world’s beginning.” (Calasso 238)
Wherever life grew parched, and
living things lost their luster, it was Vac who moistened and brighten them at
their source. With sound. Sarasvati
emerged from the mythical husks of Vac, and though initially and consistently
identified with her, over time Sarasvati came to represent characteristics
other than those originally ascribed to Vac.
Although
the distinction of sound and speech as primordial factors in the creation of
the universe is a post-Rg-vedic concept, nevertheless sound, and speech
especially when ritualized, are regarded in the Rg-veda as an integral aspect
of cosmic creation and order. Vac’s
attributes exemplified the theory prevalent in many mythologies that the origin
of the created universe occurred through sound.
In Hinduism, Vac besides being a primordial creative force, is also
honored as
“the presence
that inspires the rsis. She is truth,
and she inspires truth by sustaining Soma, the personification of the
exhilarating drink of vision and immortality.
She is the mysterious presence that enables one to hear, see, grasp, and
then express in words the true nature of things.” (Kinsley 12)
Bear in
mind, Vac was more than an abstract concept.
Her essential nature was that of an omnipresent, nourishing goddess,
forceful as a lioness, decked in golden raiment, capable of fostering both
fiercely and tenderly, organic growth as a result of providing the blessings of
language and vision. She is equated no
less with the creation of Hinduism’s three Vedas, the earth (Rg-veda), the air,
(Yajur-veda), and the sky (Sama-veda).
She is a Goddess at the very source of life, and Hinduism’s holy
writ. Gradually Vac’s vivid
personification was assumed by and metamorphosed into Sarasvati. Centuries later, additional qualities became
attributed to Sarasvati which took on a primacy in the shaping of Hindu
culture.
To
understand Sarasvati’s transitions from earlier associations with Vac into her
own Goddessdom, and from her earliest identification with the cleansing purity
and fertility of the Sarasvati River, and rivers in general, one needs to
consider the historical and cultural transitions occurring when nomadic life in
India metamorphosed into agricultural, village societies. Rivers were the life blood to these
societies. Understanding the nature of
rivers was mandatory to survival.
Sarasvati’s river heritage affirmed a tendency in classical Hinduism to
perceive the landscape itself as something sacred. Rivers were considered symbolic places for planting,
for healing, where one could cleanse one’s body and spirit. Furthermore, not only were rivers places into
which one could immerse one’s bodily self, metaphorically they assumed imagery
indigenous to all three Indian religions, Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism—that
being the fording of a body of water, be it river or stream for spiritual
attainments. By crossing over to the
other side of a river, one drowned the
deadening beliefs of the old self to be born afresh, to be liberated from the
past, towards a new, more enlightened way of being in the world.
It is not
known exactly, how The Goddess Sarasvati became less connected with her
original river goddess status, and more associated with another Goddess,
Vagdevi, the Goddess of Speech. Kinsley
speculates that,
“Perhaps the centrality of sacred speech in Vedic
cult and the importance of Vedic rituals being performed on the banks of the
Sarasvati River led to the identification of the two goddesses. In any case, Sarasvati increasingly becomes a
goddess associated with speech, learning, culture, and wisdom; most post-Vedic
references to her do not even hint that at one time she was identified with a
river.” (Kinsley 57)
I would
suggest also that the transition Sarasvati traveled from ancient river status
into the goddess of speech expresses an archetypal connection between a river’s
ability to carry earthly sediments, and the voice’s ability to carry emotive
sentiments. Intrinsically linked, voices and rivers move and shape inner and
outer topographies. Soul as soil, soil
as soul.
Insofar as
Sarasvati would eventually become a goddess equated with the refinements
Hinduism attaches to culture and transcendence of the natural world,
Sarasvati could be said to have come
full circle. That is, as a Goddess
of learning and wisdom, such as it is
attained through language, She has, in a sense,
returned to her celestial fount in the heavens, a domain above human
travail. But even though Sarasvati in
present times is often represented as transcendent, purified knowledge and
wisdom, riding a heavenly swan above the toil and turbulence of the natural
world, she can also be Sarasvati seated on a lotus, rooted in the muck of
earthly bogs.
Although rooted in the mud (like man rooted in the
physical world), the lotus perfects itself in a blossom that has transcended
the mud. Sarasvati inspires people to
live in such a way that they may transcend their physical limitations through
the ongoing creation of culture. (Kinsley 62)
Sarasvati
upholds a theme in Hinduism that affirms that human destiny is inextricably
tied to notions of the refinement of nature.
Nature without these cultural refinements is not considered suitable for
the fullest unfolding of a human being in Hindu thought. These sentiments regarding the refinement of
nature as essential to a human’s fullest potential possess a Western bias as
well, and in so doing tend to emphasis and esteem certain human attributes at
the expense of others. With the more
recent emphasis on purity and transcendence of the physical world, India’s
present day Sarasvati appears more disembodied than her earlier
incarnations. But for all Her purified,
sattvic nature, Sarasvati remains a Goddess of music as well as speech. Music is untethered speech. At her core, Sarasvati contains the fertile,
rushing sap of Her beginnings; a juice squeezed from the Vedic philosophy of
the primacy of syllables. Jonathan Levi,
in his review of Literature and The Gods,
by Roberto Calasso, in The Los Angeles
Times, April 22, 2001, quoting from Calasso, writes, “One squeezes juice, from
anything, but not from the syllable:
Because the syllable is itself the juice of everything…And from the
syllable all else flows.”
Sarasvati
is a particularly juicy goddess for
modern times, especially perhaps, for modern day women. She is not a goddess of motherhood, or the
fertility of the fields, except metaphorically.
What She gives birth to are creations other than human progeny. Hers is not a domestic presence in the
traditional sense of keeping house, but of housekeeping by creating eloquence,
art, wisdom through artistic discovery, poetry and music. With words She tills
the fields of human longing and imagination.
She is the running dialogue at the center of human affairs, spinning the stories within
which we nourish our lives. “The world
is made up of stories, not atoms”, wrote poet Muriel Rukeyser. The sounding harp of the Universe is plucked
by Sarasvati, and key to understanding her wisdom, is hearing and releasing the
sounds She makes, allowing them their ever flowing, ever-changing-ness.
In my own
life, Sarasvati’s presence has been especially potent and integral these past
few years. A story about Her swayed my
decision as to where and how I should continue my education following a return
to school to complete a bachelor’s degree begun over thirty years ago. Drawn to Pacifica Graduate Institute, torn
between a degree in Psychology, which I perceived as possessing definite
financial largesse somewhere up ahead,
and The Mythological Program which seemed possessed with as sure-footed a
financial future as the acting profession, I cast my net for a sign, an omen. I got a story.
Once upon a
time in a faraway land, a man went into the forest to see his spiritual
master. “I want to have unlimited
wealth, and with that wealth, I want to help and heal the world. Will you tell me how to create this
affluence?
The
spiritual master replied. “There are two
goddesses which reside in the heart of every human being. Everybody loves these two goddesses, but
there’s a secret you need to know, and I will tell you what it is.”
Although
you love both of these goddesses, you must pay more attention to one of
them. She is the Goddess of Knowledge,
of speech, music and sound, and her name is Sarasvati. Pursue her, love her and give her your
attention. For when you pay more
attention to Sarasvati, the other goddess, Lahksmi, the Goddess of Wealth, will
become extremely jealous and pay more attention to you. The more you seek Sarasvati, the more the
Goddess of Wealth will seek you. And she
will follow you wherever you go, and never leave you.
In that
mysterious way our Psyche senses even seizes what it really wants…and, in the
gap between that psychic sensing and fearful admonitions of the ego, responses
glimmer. Of course, I already knew which
program it was I wanted. The Myth
Program. The one with the knowledge that really called to me. It was just a question of how much faith and
derring-do I still retained. It was just a question of letting a story reconnect
me back to the source of something shining.
Certainly a
most shining manifestation of Sarasvati in Buddhism was a woman who became the
first Tibetan to attain complete enlightenment.
Her name was Yeshe Tsogyal, and her life story is written about in a
book, Lady of the Lotus Born. She is often referred to as The Great
Bliss Queen.
For
Padmasambhava, the guru who brought Buddha’s teaching from India to Tibet, to
propagate his teaching of the Secret Mantra, he felt the time had come for an
incarnation of Sarasvati to appear.
Yeshe, whose birth reverberated a Sanskrit mantra through the air so
powerfully that a nearby lake increased to almost twice its size, was the wife
of Emperor King, Tri-song-dat-tsen of Tibet.
It was Tri-song who invited Padmashambhava to Tibet to spread the new
tradition of Buddhism. With his consent,
Yeshe became Padmasambhava’s consort and foremost disciple. She was the embodiment
of the Sarasvati he was looking for.
Yeshe and
Padmasambhava through sexual union, mantras and chanting dissolved artificial
boundaries between the mind and the body.
Rather than forsaking and attempting to transcend the body, the Tantric
wisdom that Padmasambhava advocated engaged both body and mind for
enlightenment. Creating a bridge of
sound between mind and body composed of sounds and sacred syllables facilitates
an enlightening, informing dialogue between them. Keeping this river of sound flowing and being aware of its ever-changing,
interdependent behavior is the heart of Buddhist wisdom. Buddhism’s most
reknown Sarasvati, Yeshe Tsogyal, learned how to make her body sing, and became
both the singer of her life’s song, and the song itself.
Sarasvati, such as She manifested in the
bodhisattva archetype of Yeshe Tsogyal, presents an embodied Goddess who has
married within herself the heavier, darker emotional sounds of soul as they
move through the human body, and the flute-like soaring sounds of spirit, such
as they leap from the human mind. This Sarasvati appeals to me immensely, for
no parts of Her appear to be in exile.
Today, with
so much talk about creating a sense of community in our lives and world,
saturated as they are with feelings of alienation, I feel Sarasvati’s presence
holds a promise. As the Goddess of speech and music, She carries the virtues of
connection and communication. Robert Sardello writes in his book, Facing the World With Soul,. “When
community does show forth among people it shows in the word, the living,
creative, unexpected, heartfelt, spontaneous, thoughtful, reflective speaking
through which the soul of the world finds voice.” (Sardello 181). This is Sarasvati’s Queendom, the shining
place where words wait to be born in the mouths of living things. Voice is how
the soul speaks
In speaking
the breath connects us to each other.
When we bank and shape this breath with the consonants and vowels of
whatever language we speak, we become like the earth, banking the forces of a
river so it can meander with some depth through the landscape moistening and
moving it with life’s running waters. It
is a sacred thing we do with breath and speech that Sarasvati oversees. It came to me so vividly just a few nights
ago, as a small tree rat lay dying in the street by my driveway. I knew not what had happened to it. Poison, I assumed. But suddenly I was profoundly overcome. I could not leave him (her). Her tiny eyes
seemed to take me in, as I took her into me.
We were inhaling one another. We were
a community of two, two souls speaking of the deepest things between us. I asked Sarasvati to hold her in Her breath
as I lay her small furry body on soft ground under some vines, to expire. I
knew She would say the right words. And
that the little tree rat would hear her name in Her merciful voice, and be released
into Her flowing music as she headed home to the bright world from whence She
and she, and all of us came…together.
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