Chapter IX
Saraswati and Her Consorts
THE symbolism of
the Veda betrays itself with the greatest clearness in the
figure of the goddess Saraswati. In many of the other gods the
balance of the internal sense and the external figure is
carefully preserved. The veil sometimes becomes transparent or
its corners are lifted even for the ordinary hearer of the Word;
but it is never entirely removed. One may doubt whether Agni is
anything more than the personification of the sacrificial Fire
or of the physical principle of Light and Heat in things, or
Indra anything more than the god of the sky and the rain or of
physical Light, or Vayu anything more than the divinity in the
Wind and Air or at most of the physical Life- breath. In the
lesser gods the naturalistic interpretation has less ground for
confidence; for it is obvious that Varuna is not merely a Vedic
Uranus or Neptune, but a god with great and important moral
functions; Mitra and Bhaga have the same psychological aspect;
the Ribhus who form things by the mind and build up immortality
by works can with difficulty be crushed into the Procrustean
measure of a naturalistic mythology. Still by imputing a chaotic
confusion of ideas to the poets of the Vedic hymns the
difficulty can be trampled upon, if not overcome. But Saraswati
will submit to no such treatment. She is, plainly and clearly,
the goddess of the Word, the goddess of a divine Inspiration.
If that were all, this would not carry us much farther than the
obvious fact that the Vedic Rishis were not mere naturalistic
barbarians, but had their psychological ideas and were capable
of creating mythological symbols which represent not only those
obvious operations of physical Nature that interested their
agricultural, pastoral and open-air life, but also the inner
operations of the mind and soul. If we have to conceive the
history of ancient religious thought as a progression from the
physical to the
Page – 91
spiritual, from a purely naturalistic to an increasingly ethical
and psychological view of Nature and the world and the gods, —
and this, though by no means certain, is for the present the
accepted view¹— we must suppose that the Vedic poets were at
least already advancing from the physical and naturalistic
conception of the gods to the ethical and the spiritual. But
Saraswati is not only the goddess of Inspiration, she is at one
and the same time one of the seven rivers of the early Aryan
world. The question at once arises, whence came this
extraordinary identification ? And how does the connection of
the two ideas present itself in the Vedic hymns ? And there is
more; for Saraswati is important not only in herself but by her
connections. Before proceeding farther let us cast a rapid and
cursory glance at them to see what they can teach us.
The association of a river with the poetical inspiration occurs
also in the Greek mythology; but there the Muses are not
conceived of as rivers; they are only connected in a not very
intelligible fashion with a particular earthly stream. This
stream is the river Hippocrene, the fountain of the Horse, and
to account for its name we have a legend that it sprang from the
hoof of the divine horse Pegasus; for he smote the rock with his
hoof and the waters of inspiration gushed out where the mountain
had been thus smitten. Was this legend merely a Greek fairy-tale
or had it any special meaning ? And it is evident that if it had
any meaning, it must, since it obviously refers to a
psychological phenomenon, the birth of the waters of
inspiration, have had a psychological meaning; it must have been
an attempt to put into concrete figures certain psychological
facts. We may note that the word Pegasus, if we transliterate it
into the original Aryan phonetics, becomes Pajasa and is
obviously connected with the Sanskrit pājas, which meant
originally force,
¹I do not think we have any real materials for
determining the first origin and primitive history of religious
ideas. What the facts really point to is an early teaching at
once psychological and naturalistic, that is to say with two
faces, of which the first came to be more or less obscured, but
never entirely effaced even in the barbarous races, even in
races like the tribes of North America. But this teaching,
though prehistoric, was anything but primitive.
movement, or sometimes footing. In Greek itself it is connected
with pêgê, a stream. There is, therefore, in the terms of
this legend a constant association with the image of a forceful
movement of inspiration. If we turn to Vedic symbols we see that
the Ashwa or Horse is an image of the great dynamic force of
Life, of the vital and nervous energy, and is constantly coupled
with other images that symbolise the consciousness. Adri,
the hill or rock, is a symbol of formal existence and especially
of the physical nature and it is out of this hill or rock that
the herds of the Sun are released and the waters flow. The
streams of the madhu,
the honey, the Soma, are said also to be milked out of this Hill
or Rock. The stroke of the Horse's hoof on the rock releasing
the waters of inspiration would thus become a very obvious
psychological image. Nor is there any reason to suppose that the
old Greeks and Indians were incapable either of such
psychological observation or of putting it into the poetical and
mystic imagery which was the very body of the ancient Mysteries.
We might indeed go farther and inquire whether there was not
some original connection between the hero Bellerophon, slayer of
Bellerus, who rides on the divine Horse, and Indra Valahan, the
Vedic slayer of Vala, the enemy who keeps for him- self the
Light. But this would take us beyond the limits of our subject.
Nor does this interpretation of the Pegasus legend carry us any
farther than to indicate the natural turn of imagination of the
Ancients and the way in which they came to figure the stream of
inspiration as an actual stream of flowing water. Saraswati
means, "she of the stream, the flowing movement", and is
therefore a natural name both for a river and for the goddess of
inspiration. But by what process of thought or association does
the general idea of the river of inspiration come to be
associated with a particular earthly stream? And in the Veda it
is not a question of one river which by its surroundings,
natural and legendary, might seem more fitly associated with the
idea of sacred inspiration than any other. For here it is a
question not of one, but of seven rivers always associated
together in the minds of the Rishis and all of them released
together by
Page – 93
the
stroke of the God Indra when he smote the Python who coiled
across their fountains and sealed up their outflow. It seems
impossible to suppose that one river only in all this sevenfold
outflowing acquired a psychological significance while the rest
were associated only with the annual coming of the rains in the
Punjab. The psychological significance of Saraswati
carries with it a psychological significance for the whole
symbol of the Vedic waters.2
Saraswati is not only connected with other rivers but with other
goddesses who are plainly psychological symbols and especially
with Bharati and Ila. In the later Puranic forms of worship
Saraswati is the goddess of speech, of learning and of poetry
and Bharati is one of her names, but in the Veda Bharati and
Saraswati are different deities. Bharati is also called Mahi,
the Large, Great or Vast. The three, Ila, Mahi or Bharati and
Saraswati are associated together in a constant formula in those
hymns of invocation in which the gods are called by Agni to the
sacrifice.
Iḷā sarasvatī mahī tisro devīr
mayobhuvaḥ,
barhiḥ. sīdantvasridhaḥ.
"May Ila, Saraswati and Mahi, three goddesses who give birth to
the bliss, take their place on the sacrificial seat, they who
stumble not," or "who come not to hurt" or "do not hurt." The
epithet means, I think, they in whom there is no false movement
with its evil consequences, duritam, no stumbling into
pitfalls of sin and error. The formula is expanded in Hymn 110
of the tenth Mandala:
Ā
no yajñam bhāratī tūyam etu,
iḷā
manuṣvad iha cetayantī,
tisro devīr barhir
edam syonam
sarasvatī svapasaḥ sadantu.
2 The rivers have a symbolic
sense in later Indian thought; as for instance Ganges, Yamuna
and Saraswati and their confluence are in the Tantric imagery
Yogic symbols, and they are used, though in a different way, in
Yogic symbolism generally.
Page – 94
"May Bharati come speeding to our sacrifice and Ila hither
awakening our consciousness (or, knowledge or perceptions) in
human wise, and Saraswati, — three goddesses sit on this
blissful seat, doing well the Work."
It is clear and will become yet clearer that these three
goddesses have closely connected functions akin to the
inspirational power of Saraswati. Saraswati is the Word, the
inspiration, as I suggest, that comes from the ṛtam,
the Truth-Consciousness. Bharati and Ila must also be different
forms of the same Word or knowledge. In the eighth hymn of
Madhuchchhandas we have a Rik in which Bharati is mentioned
under the name of Mahi.
Evā hyasya sūnṛtā, virapśī gomatī
mahī,
pakvā śākhā na dāśuṣe.
"Thus Mahi for Indra full of the rays, overflowing in her abundance,
in her nature a happy truth, becomes as if a ripe branch for the
giver of the sacrifice."
The rays in the Veda are the rays of Surya, the Sun. Are we to
suppose that the goddess is a deity of the physical Light or are
we to translate go by cow and suppose that Mahi is full
of cows for the sacrificer ? The psychological character of
Saraswati comes to our rescue against the last absurd
supposition, but it negatives equally the naturalistic
interpretation. This characterisation of Mahi, Saraswati's
companion in the sacrifice, the sister of the goddess of
inspiration, entirely identified with her in the later
mythology, is one proof among a hundred others that light in the
Veda is a symbol of knowledge, of spiritual illumination. Surya
is the Lord of the supreme Sight, the vast Light, bṛhat
jyotiḥ, or, as it is sometimes
called, the true Light, ṛtam
jyotiḥ. And the connection
between the words ṛtam and
bṛhat is constant in the
Veda.
It seems to me impossible to see in these expressions any- thing
else than the indication of a state of illumined conscious- ness
the nature of which is that it is wide or large, bṛhat,
full of the truth of being, satyam, and of the truth of
knowledge and action, ṛtam.
The gods have this consciousness. Agni, for instance, is termed
ṛtacit, he who has the
Truth-Consciousness.
Mahi is full of the rays of this Surya; she
carries in her this illumination. Moreover she is sunṛtā,
she is the word of a blissful Truth, even as it has been said of
Saraswati that she is the impeller of
happy truths, codayitrī sūnṛtānām.
Finally, she is virapśī, large or breaking out into
abundance, a word which recalls to us that the Truth is also a
Largeness, ṛtam bṛhat.
And, in another hymn, (1.22.10), she is described as varūtrī
dhiṣaṇā,
a widely covering or embracing Thought-power. Mahi, then, is
the luminous vastness of the Truth, she represents the Large-
ness, bṛhat, of the
superconscient in us containing in itself the Truth, ṛtam.
She is, therefore, for the sacrificer, like a branch covered
with ripe fruit.
Ila is also the word of the truth; her name has become identical
in a later confusion with the idea of speech. As Saraswati is an
awakener of the consciousness to right thinkings or right states
of mind, cetantī sumatīnām, so also Ila comes to the
sacrifice awakening the consciousness to knowledge,
cetayantī. She is full of energy, suvīrā, and brings
knowledge. She also is connected with Surya, the Sun, as when
Agni, the Will, is invoked (V.4.4) to labour by the rays of the
Sun, Lord of the true Light, being of one mind with Ila, iḷayā
sajoṣā yatamāno raśmibhiḥ
sūryasya. She is the mother of the Rays, the herds of
the Sun. Her name means she who seeks and attains and it
contains the same association of ideas as the words ṛtam
and Rishi. Ila may therefore well be the vision of the seer
which attains the truth.
As Saraswati represents the truth-audition, śruti, which
gives the inspired word, so Ila represents dṛṣṭi,
the truth-vision. If so, since dṛṣṭi
and śruti are the two powers of the Rishi, the Kavi, the
Seer of the Truth, we can understand the close connection of Ila
and Saraswati. Bharati or Mahi is the largeness of the
Truth-Consciousness which, dawning on man's limited mind, brings
with it the two sister Puissances. We can also understand how
these fine and living distinctions came afterwards to be
neglected as the Vedic knowledge declined and Bharati,
Saraswati, Ila melted into one.
We may note also that these three goddesses are said to
bring to birth for man the Bliss, mayas. I have already insisted
on the constant relation, as conceived by the Vedic seers,
between the Truth and the Bliss or Ananda. It is by the dawning
of the true or infinite consciousness in man that he arrives out
of this evil dream of pain and suffering, this divided creation
into the
Bliss, the happy state variously described in Veda by the words
bhadram, mayas (love and bliss), svasti (the good
state of existence, right being) and by others less technically
used such as vāryam, rayiḥ,
rāyaḥ. For the Vedic Rishi
Truth is the passage and the antechamber, the Bliss of the
divine existence is the goal, or else Truth is the foundation,
Bliss the supreme result.
Such, then, is the -character of Saraswati as a psychological
principle, her peculiar function and her relation to her most
immediate connections among the gods. How far do these shed any
light on her relations as the Vedic river to her six sister
streams? The number seven plays an exceedingly important part in
the Vedic system, as in most very ancient schools of thought. We
find it recurring constantly, — the seven delights, sapta
ratnāni; the seven flames, tongues or rays of Agni, sapta
arciṣaḥ,
sapta jvālāḥ; the seven forms
of the Thought-principle, sapta dhītayḥ;
the seven Rays or Cows, forms of the Cow unslayable, Aditi,
mother of the gods, sapta gāvaḥ;
the seven rivers, the seven mothers or fostering cows, sapta
mātarah, sapta dhenavaḥ̣, a
term applied indifferently to the Rays and to the Rivers. All
these sets of seven depend, it seems to me, upon the Vedic
classification of the fundamental principles, the tattvas,
of existence. The enquiry into the number of these tattvas
greatly interested the speculative mind of the ancients and in
Indian philosophy we find various answers ranging from the One
upward and running into the twenties. In Vedic thought the basis
chosen was the number of the psychological principles, because
all existence was conceived by the Rishis as a movement of
conscious being. However merely curious or barren these
speculations and classifications may seem to the modern mind,
they were no mere dry metaphysical distinctions, but closely
connected with a living psychological practice of which they
were to a great extent the thought-basis, and in any case we
must understand them clearly
if we wish to form with any accuracy an idea of this ancient and
far-off system.
In the Veda, then, we find the number of the principles
variously stated. The One was recognised as the basis and
continent; in this One there were the two principles divine and
human, mortal and immortal. The dual number is also otherwise
applied in the two principles. Heaven and Earth, Mind and Body,
Soul and Nature, who are regarded as the father and mother of
all beings. It is significant, however, that Heaven and Earth,
when they symbolise two forms of natural energy, the mental and
the physical consciousness, are no longer the father and mother,
but the two mothers. The triple principle was doubly recognised,
first in the1 threefold divine principle answering to the later
Sachchidananda, the divine existence, consciousness and bliss,
and secondly in the threefold mundane principle, Mind, Life,
Body, upon which is built the triple world of the Veda and
Puranas. But the full number ordinarily recognised is seven.
This figure was arrived at by adding the three divine principles
to the three mundane and interpolating a seventh or
link-principle which is precisely that of the
Truth-Consciousness, ṛtam bṛhat,
afterwards known as Vijnana or Mahas. The latter term means
the Large and is therefore an equivalent of bṛhat.
There are other classifications of five, eight, nine and ten and
even, as it would seem, twelve; but these do not immediately
concern us.
All these principles, be it noted, are supposed to be really
inseparable and omnipresent and therefore apply themselves to
each separate formation of Nature. The seven Thoughts, for
instance, are Mind applying itself to each of the seven planes
as we would now call them and formulating Matter-mind, if we may
so call it, nervous mind, pure mind, truth-mind and so on to the
highest summit, paramā parāvat. The seven rays or cows
are Aditi the infinite Mother, the Cow unslayable, supreme
Nature or infinite Consciousness, pristine source of the later
idea of Prakriti or Shakti, — the Purusha is in this early
pastoral imagery the Bull, Vrishabha, — the Mother of things
taking form on the seven planes of her world-action as energy of
conscious being. So also, the seven rivers are conscious
currents corresponding to
the sevenfold substance of the ocean of being which appears to
us formulated in the seven worlds enumerated by the Puranas. It
is their full flow in the human consciousness which constitutes
the entire activity of the being, his full treasure of
substance, his full play of energy. In the Vedic image, his cows
drink of the water of the seven rivers.
Should this imagery be admitted, and it is evident that if once
such conceptions are supposed to exist, this would be the
natural imagery for a people living the life and placed in the
surroundings of the ancient Aryans, — quite as natural for them
and inevitable as for us the image of the "planes" with which
theosophical thought has familiarised us, — the place of
Saraswati as one of the seven rivers becomes clear. She is the
current which comes from the Truth-principle, from the ṛtam
or Mahas, and we actually find this principle spoken of in the
Veda, — in the closing passage of our third hymn for instance, —
as the Great Water, maho arṇaḥ,
— an expression which gives us at once the origin of the
later term, Mahas — or sometimes mahān arṇavaḥ.
We see in the third hymn the close connection between Saraswati
and this great water. Let us examine a little more closely this
connection before we proceed to the consideration of the Vedic
cows and their relation to the god Indra and Saraswati's close
cousin the goddess Sarama. For it is necessary to define these
relations before we can progress with the scrutiny of
Madhuchchhandas' other hymns addressed without exception to the
great Vedic deity. King of Heaven, who, according to our
hypothesis, symbolises the Power of Mind and especially the
divine or self-luminous Mind in the human being.