From Nadītame to Sarasvati

I have been circling the idea of reading the Rig Veda for many years now.

I have put this demand on myself. There seems to be no ‘right way’ of being of this fold, but I do sense a level of duty to ensure there is continuous learning, especially of our scriptures.

Having read what our ancestors have gone through and kept alive makes me feel a little inadequate if I don’t know why and what I am following too.

The best thing I know about our scriptures is that there was a whole era before they were in written form where oral traditions continued the civilisations.

Even now, we’re still reliant on our voices, speaking and uttering these things all the time.

It makes it harder for any side of the world that relies on visual evidence, with data points and graphs to believe in what we do.

But this oldest text has been somewhat overwhelming to approach.

I suppose, on some level, a lethargy has kicked in because I know I am of the fold of the unbroken civilisation that it is part of.

You take for granted things you’re given, and often forget that unless you actively preserve it, it’ll be lost.

But I also know the text I would have access to would need to be in English with the ideas and concepts from it explained in the same.

And in this we drift even further from the core meaning that it was intending to have.

We have it handed down and then translated.

And having learnt about words for so long now, I do realise that not every word in Sanskrit has a direct translation in English.

But these are also excuses.

Because within this back and forth with my own reasoning, I randomly ended up studying the Rig Veda’s verses.

I was debating geography and archeology with an American historian and found myself fully immersed in defending my civilisational culture through one verse from the Rig Veda.

I wrote about it after the exchange too.

The verse was the Rig Veda 2.41.16, and it included the word nadītame.

The last essay was therefore an exploration of this Sanskrit term.

Then a question came along.

What other verses are there in the Rig Veda that describe and mention the Sarasvati?

Sarasvati here was referring to the River.

The one I had defended was part of our civilisational history and ancient geography.

But, when I think of the word Sarasvati, I don’t think of a river.

I visualise the Divine Feminine wearing white, standing or sitting on a lotus flower holding a veena.

She is, of course, the Goddess of Wisdom.

And the Goddess of Creativity.

Rarely do I realise that she is also this flowing symbol that unites us with the past.

Even her etymology is a stark realisation that she is the sum of two parts that have fused together.

She is the fusion of two Sanskrit roots: Saras (सरस्), meaning ‘pooling water’, ‘lake’ or ‘flow’, which itself is from the root sṛ (सृ), which means ‘to flow’ or ‘to glide’, and vati (वती), meaning ‘she who possesses’ or ‘having’

The river is in her name.

How did I not know this?

How humbling a realisation it is that she is possessing the river in her name already.

And that image of the veena with the white and pink served a path of narrow wisdom without realising what I am learning now.

That she is literally bridging this gap of my own knowledge and understanding where now nadītame is louder than it has been before.

And I realised that the Rig Veda explores the Sarasvati as two parts as well.

As a Goddess, as I have always understood, and as a geography that we are now able to explore through our civilisational heritage.

My understanding so far isn’t dismissed, it has fused with the nadītame.

I am overwhelmed by learning this. I feel some guilt that perhaps I should have known this already.

But I am also in deep surrender in realising there is a level of humility She is teaching me in understanding Her too.

Taking this first step, led to the next.

I started searching the verses, with the aid of some tools, to understand how the Rig Veda mentions the Sarasvati river and as a geography and how many times she is mentioned over all.

I used the Wisdom Library resource to do this, which gave the Sanskrit words, English letters to mirror the Sanskrit pronunciation, and an explanation of each word in English.

The source it used was by HH Wilson, who, through his intent, for loving the language and the scripture, had translated the sacred text so someone like me.

I belong to the fold, yet here I was engaging with it now so that I could answer my own inquiry.

Unlucky for HH Wilson, I also found myself researching his intent around our civilisational story too.

This scepticism has always been there as well.

HH Wilson also has to go through this check, because colonial-era scholarship sits in the background of almost every English encounter with Sanskrit texts.

And it was reassuring that his intent, at least, was there to respect the verses for what they were. Not as part of a ‘civilising mission’ to remove the soul of the civilisation that had been there for thousands of years.

But this sacred text, what can I say?

The Rig Veda contains so many verses that honour the mighty Sarasvati River.

There are multiple specific references to Sarasvati, spanning across roughly 80 to 90 individual mantras depending on how strictly textual variants, pronouns and composite epithets are counted.

When I tried to make sense of how many times She featured by being explained as a geography, I was presented with numerous mantras to explain her vast influence on the region.

These mantras really helped me realise just the vastness of the river.

Rig Veda 2.41.16

This was the verse that held my hand as I walked through the verses. It has genuinely stayed with me since I first read it. It was the first time that I was invited to visualise Sarasvati as a river. And not just any river - the best of all rivers.

अम्बितमे नदीतमे देवितमे सरस्वति । अप्रशस्ता इव स्मसि प्रशस्तिमम्ब नस्कृधि ॥
ambitame nadītame devitame sarasvati | apraśastā iva smasi praśastim amba nas kṛdhi ||

‘Sarasvatī, best of mothers, best of rivers, best of goddesses, we are, as it were, of no repute; grant us, mother, distinction’.

Rig Veda 10.75.5:

Here Sarasvati is occupying a landscape. I’m being shown the vastness of the landmass she inhabits. She is becoming this river in my visualisation. I am beginning to hold space for a river, not just a Goddess on a lotus wearing white.

This sequencing helps geologists of today map the ancient river bed to the modern Ghaggar-Hakra river channel.

The feeling of overwhelm is still there as I find myself quietly astonished that a hymn once preserved only through human memory is now read alongside satellite imagery and fieldwork.

It’s indeed a privilege to belong to a civilisation whose oldest surviving verses continue to provide new understanding.

इ॒मं मे॑ गङ्गे यमुने सरस्वति॒ शुतु॑द्रि॒ स्तोमं॑ सचता॒ परु॒ष्ण्या । अ॒सि॒क्न्या म॑रुद्वृधे वि॒तस्त॒यार्जी॑कीये शृणु॒ह्या सु॒षोम॑या ॥

imam me gaṅge yamune sarasvati śutudri stomaṃ sacatā paruṣṇy ā | asiknyā marudvṛdhe vitastayārjīkīye śṛṇuhy ā suṣomayā ||

‘Accept this my praise, Gaṅgā, Yamunā, Sarasvatī, Śutudri, Paruṣṇi, Marudvṛdha with Asiknī,and Vitastā; listen, Ārjikīya with Suṣomā.’

Rig Veda 7.95.2

Here, again, I am being shown the vastness of the river. The one that can reach the sea. Again, the words are encouraging me to visualise the Sarasvati as a river, not just the visual of a Maa who holds a veena.

एका॑चेत॒त्सर॑स्वती न॒दीनां॒ शुचि॑र्य॒ती गि॒रिभ्य॒ आ स॑मु॒द्रात् । रा॒यश्चेत॑न्ती॒ भुव॑नस्य॒ भूरे॑र्घृ॒तं पयो॑ दुदुहे॒ नाहु॑षाय ॥

ekācetat sarasvatī nadīnāṃ śucir yatī giribhya ā samudrāt | rāyaś cetantī bhuvanasya bhūrer ghṛtam payo duduhe nāhuṣāya ||

‘Sarasvatī, chief and pure of rivers, flowing from the mountains to the ocean, understood the request of Nahuṣa, and distributing riches among the many existing beings, milked for him butter and water.’

And then this mantra too…

Rig Veda 6.61.13

Here I am reminded that even Sarasvati is a roop of Shakti. That despite the subtlety of white and pink from the image I had of Her, she is fierce. She is Shakti.

प्र या म॑हि॒म्ना म॒हिना॑सु॒ चेकि॑ते द्यु॒म्नेभि॑र॒न्या अ॒पसा॑म॒पस्त॑मा । रथ॑ इव बृह॒ती वि॒भ्वने॑ कृ॒तोप॒स्तुत्या॑ चिकि॒तुषा॒ सर॑स्वती ॥
pra yā mahimnā mahināsu cekite dyumnebhir anyā apasām apastamā | ratha iva bṛhatī vibhvane kṛtopastutyā cikituṣā sarasvatī ||

‘She who is distinguished among them as eminent in greatness and in her glories; she who is the most impetuous of all other streams; she who has been created vast in capacity as a chariot, she, Sarasvatī, is to be glorified by the worshippers’.

It is here I realised I was immersed in the verses of one of the fundamental sacred texts of my faith.

Something which has withstood the test of time.

It was overwhelming for me to realise just how little I knew about the civilisational heritage I had been given.

There are so many more mantras I read that explain the vastness of Sarasvati as a geography.

I started to read these verses knowing what nadītame meant, and understanding that I had been conditioned to view Sarasvati in white and pink.

With knowledge and creativity.

But I’ve come away visualising Maa Sarasvati smiling, almost laughing too.

Like She knew that as soon as I immersed myself in these mantras I would feel this level of overwhelm in realising that I know so little.

Is there an attachment to wisdom I have gained from this experience?

I feel somewhat in awe, and smaller as a person.

I have so much to learn about my inheritance that I realise I didn’t really know anything.

New ideas and new perspectives were sitting there awaiting my exploration.

There is a river flowing too.

Perhaps I should have done this earlier.

Or maybe this is what She wanted. The right time for me to understand.

And that circling of an idea I originally had, suddenly became a distant memory.

I was immersed in this river of knowledge.

And it is Sarasvati who led the way.