The goddess Saraswati is often depicted as a beautiful woman dressed in pure white, often seated on a white , which symbolizes light, knowledge and truth.
She not only embodies knowledge but also the experience of the highest reality.
Her iconography is typically in white themes from dress to flowers to swan – the colour symbolizing Sattwa Guna or purity, discrimination for true knowledge, insight and wisdom.
Her dhyana mantra describes her to be as white as the moon, clad in a white dress, bedecked in white ornaments, radiating with beauty, holding a book and a pen in her hands (the book represents knowledge)
She is generally shown to have four arms, but sometimes just two.
When shown with four hands, those hands symbolically mirror her husband Brahma's four heads, representing manas (mind, sense), buddhi (intellect, reasoning), citta (imagination, creativity), and ahamkāra (self consciousness, ego).
Brahma represents the abstract, while she represents action and reality.
The four hands hold items with symbolic meaning – a pustaka (book or script), a mālā (rosary, garland), a water pot and a musical instrument (vīnā).
The book she holds symbolizes the Vedas representing the universal, divine, eternal, and true knowledge as well as all forms of learning.
A mālā of crystals, representing the power of meditation, inner reflection, and spirituality.
A pot of water represents the purifying power to separate right from wrong, the clean from the unclean, and essence from the inessential.
In some texts, the pot of water is symbolism for soma – the drink that liberates and leads to knowledge.
The most famous feature on Saraswati is a musical instrument called a veena, represents all creative arts and sciences, and her holding it symbolizes expressing knowledge that creates harmony.
Saraswati is also associated with anurāga, the love for and rhythm of music, which represents all emotions and feelings expressed in speech or music.
A hamsa – either a swan or a goose – is often shown near her feet.
In Hindu mythology, the hamsa is a sacred bird, which if offered a mixture of milk and water, is said to be able to drink the milk alone.
It thus symbolizes the ability to discriminate between good and evil, essence from the outward show, and the eternal from the evanescent.
Due to her association with the swan, Saraswati is also referred to as Hamsavāhini, which means "she who has a hamsa as her vehicle".
The swan is also a symbolism for spiritual perfection, transcendence and moksha.
Sometimes a citramekhala (also called mayura ) is shown beside the goddess.
The peacock symbolizes colorful splendor, the celebration of dance, and – as the devourer of snakes – the alchemical ability to transmute the serpent poison of into the radiant plumage of enlightenment.
She is usually depicted near a flowing river or another body of water, which depiction may constitute a reference to her early history as a river goddess.
She represents the Sattva Guna, and Jnana Shakti.
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𝕸𝖊𝖉𝖍𝖆 - The wisdom of the world
Historical FictionSaraswati the goddess of knowledge, who is praised by the wise, who is the wife of the creator, may she reside on the tip of my tongue.
