Knowlege and Purity Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Precedence: bulk
Saraswati is derived from "swar", meaning voice, tone or note. Rigveda calls her goddess of true speech and cause of rythm, harmony and unity. She is Hindu equivalent of Minerva, goddess of learning. Saraswati is represented as clad in white and consequently a symbol of purity and antithesis of ignorance. Hence her identification with river saraswati in Punjab. It was their equivalent of Ganges. Early vedic aryans regarded river as source of life, physical and spiritual cleanser. Invocations to her occur in all four vedas. I would say that Ocean has not the same symbolic importance to a Hindu as a River. The Oceans (as it was shown at the entrance of the Indian pavillion at Expo 98) were a source of material wealth, but River was a sacred sourced of spiritual and physical cleasing. For many other details, Jorge Noronha could consult Chitralekha Singh & Prem Nath, *Hindu Goddesses*, New Delhi, Crest Publishing House, 1996. ------------------------------------------------------------------- To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from Goa-Research-Net ------------------------------------------------------------------- * Send us a brief self-intro to justify your interest in this "specialized" forum. This should be sent to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or to [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] (NOT goa-research-net@goacom.com) * Leave SUBJECT blank * On first line of the BODY of your message, type: subscribe goa-research-net [EMAIL PROTECTED] or unsubscribe goa-research-net [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------------------------------------------------
