Saraswati

Published on 8th January, 2021, in Mid-day. In Gujarat, there is a river called Saraswati that originates in the Aravalli mountains, and runs for 350 km. In Uttarakhand, there is another Saraswati river that is a tributary of the Alakananda that joins the river near Badrinath. There is another Saraswati river that flows through the city of Indore, in Madhya Pradesh. Rivers do not give themselves names. People give them names. People identified these rivers as Saraswati, perhaps in memory of the great river that is mentioned in the Rig Veda. In pilgrim lore, this river disappeared at Prayag, where Ganga and Yamuna meet. In ..

Published on 19th July, 2020, in Mid-day In popular lore, Lakshmi and Saraswati hate each other. Where there is fortune, there is no respect for education, and where there is education, there is no value for wealth. The courtesan's house was the only place where the two lived together: she was well versed in music and dance and the arts, and was admired by the learned and the rich. In festivals, the two goddesses are shown as daughters of Durga. Or, they sit on either side of Ganesha, identified as his two mothers, or his two sisters, or even his two wives, Riddhi (material growth) ..

Published on 19th August, 2018, in Mumbai Mirror. When we speak of Saraswati, the image that comes in our mind is of a goddess wearing white and holding a lute (veena) in her hand, riding a swan or perhaps a peacock. She’s the ‘Goddess of Knowledge’. Her images are found in libraries and in schools, she is associated with arts and culture, commonly seen with Ganesha by her side. But when we read the Vedas, we hear of a very different Saraswati – the river Saraswati. Historians are fairly confident that at one time a river called Saraswati flowed in the north-west part of India, ..

Published on 30th October, 2016, in Mumbai Mirror. This is one temple we cannot visit. Actually, it is not a temple any more. It is a ruin. And it is located across the Line of Control (LOC) in Pakistan occupied Kashmir (POK), near the Kishenganga river, now renamed the allegedly more Islamic-sounding Neelam river. This is Sharada-peeth, said to be where the right hand of Sati’s corpse fell. It was once a temple of Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge, and renowned as a centre of learning. From here came the Sharada script, that was once very popular in north India, and which eventually gave rise ..