Yesterday, January 20th, was this year's Saraswati Puja, or festival of the Hindu goddess Saraswati. ( I had intended to feature a goddess from another culture this week, but I couldn't let Saraswati's special day go by!) Saraswati has a beautiful name - Sanskrit sara - "essence" plus swa - "self" or "being". Saraswati is the goddess of knowledge, arts, and culture, of the balancing of intellectual and heart wisdom. There is a very complete description of the traditional iconography of Saraswati here, and an MP3 of her mantra (as well as lots of others!) is downloadable here. I love the elegant, moody feeling of her traditional representations, like those shown here, they remind me of the DaVinci madonnas.
Oh, and that's a book, not an iPod, in her lower left hand :)
Oh, and that's a book, not an iPod, in her lower left hand :)
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