ORIENTAL SERIES.

284
SARASWATI.
him for instruction, and 60,000 acquired a knowledge of the
Vedas from him. "This legend," says Wilson, "appears to
indicate the revival, or, more probahly, the introduction of the
Hindu ritual by the race of Brahmans, or the people called
Saraswata," who dwelt near the Saraswati river. Saraswata
Brahmans still dwell in the Panjab, and are met with in many
other 2.
parts, The country about the Saraswati river. 3. A
great national division of the Brahman caste.
<
SAKASWATL Watery, elegant/ In the Yedas, Saraswati
is primarily a river, but is celebrated in the hymns both as
a river and a deity. The Saraswati river was one boundary of
Brahmavartta, the home of the early Aryans, and was to them,
in all likelihood, a sacred river, as the Ganges has long been to
their descendants. As a river goddess, Saraswati is lauded for
the fertilising and purifying powers of her waters, and as the
bestower of fertility, fatness, and wealth. Her position as Yach,
the goddess of speech, finds no mention in the JSig-veda, but is
recognised by the Brahmans and the Maha-bharata. Dr. Muir
endeavours to account for her acquisition of this character. He
say, "When once the river had acquired a divine character, it
was quite natural that she should be regarded as the patroness
of the ceremonies which were celebrated on the margin of her
holy waters, and that her direction and blessing should be invoked
as essential to their proper performance and success.
The connection into which she was thus brought with sacred
rites may have led to the further step of imagining her to have
an influence on the composition of the hymns which formed so
important a part of the proceedings, and of identifying her with
Yach, the goddess of speech." In later times Saraswati is the
wife of Brahma, the goddess of speech and learning, inventress
of the Sanskrit language and Deva-nagari letters, and patroness
of the arts and
"
sciences. She is represented as of a white
colour, without any superfluity of limbs, and not unfrequently
of a graceful figure,
"
sitting on a lotus.
wearing a slender crescent on her brow and
Wilson. The same authority states that " the
Vaislwavas of Bengal have a popular legend that she was the wife
of Vishnu, as were also Lakshml and Ganga. The ladies dis-
agreed ; Saraswati, like the other prototype of learned ladies,
Minerva, being something of a termagant, and Yishnu finding
that one wife was as much as he could manage, transferred