At the most beautiful coming together of two pastel seasons, winter and spring, Indians fold their hands before the goddess of our abstract faculty, art, culture and erudition. She is Saraswati, the divine consort of Lord Brahma, the creator and also manifested as the supreme aquatic force refreshing and replenishing life along its banks.
Saraswati is the name of one of the prime Vedic waters, who along with Ganga and Yamuna have been cleansing souls and supporting civilizations in the Indian subcontinent since pre Indus times. There are many myths explaining the existence and disappearance of the Saraswati Riverin our scriptures which also give us enchanting lores of the origin of Saraswati as the goddess of expression and imagination. Let us indulge in a few of them before we visit a century old celebration of Saraswati’s earthly sojourn in Kolkata.
Who is Saraswati?
According to the Hindu pantheon Saraswati is also known as Bagdevi or the Goddess of speech. When the creator of the universe Lord Brahma created life, all that was missing in his beautiful world was the sound. Rivers flew, animals roamed, birds wandered and the wind blew but failed to conjure the beauty of the planet due to a deafening silence. That was when Lord Brahma, who failed to fathom the reason for his creative failure, was asked to invoke the deity of ‘Swar’ or sound by Lord Vishnu to lend life to his creation. Thus presided Saraswati, the goddess of sound,over the speech, expression, thinking, imagination and language of us all.
We also find a mention of her’s in the early chapters of the Mahabharat when Lord Ganesh was employed for his swiftness by the proponent of the epic, Sage Vedbyas, to write it. As the two of them sat beside the currents of the Saraswati river, which in ancient India was the seat of educational exercise, Lord Ganesh could not concentrate on his writing due to the high sound of Saraswati’s constant flow. When she refused to reduce her reverberations even upon Ganesh’srepeated requests, he out of infuriation, cursed her to disappear under the earth and flow as a river underground. That mythically explains the mystery of the vanishing river Saraswati whichonce was the life line of the Indus Valley Civilization.
The legend of Saraswati however is not always characterized by the quest of eternal knowledge. She is often manifested in many fierce forms of vindictive power and warfare. The slayer of demons Shumbh and Nishumbh, Goddess Kaushiki, who was formed out of the discarded dark cells of Goddess Parvati is also known as Maha Saraswati who played her Veena before taking on the warrior shape. One of the wisdom goddesses of the Shakti cult, Goddess Matangi, is the Tantric manifestation of Saraswati who holds the Veena and the Kharpar or the Scalpel with equal ease. She presides over leftover food and thus is also called ‘Uchchist Chandalini’, who,when enraged, causes intellectual deformation of the wrongdoers.
An ancient scripture like the Kamasutra also recognizes Saraswati as the deity of carnal emotions as ancient India acknowledged masculine sex appeal only as high as a man’s cultural erudition.
Goddess Saraswati is actually the female force of the cosmos which represents the first of the three principal characteristics of living beings, the ‘Satto Gun’ or the voyage of self discovery through intellectual introspection of knowledge. The other two being ‘Rajo Gun’ and ‘TamoGun’ which mean allure, ambition and violent valiance and are respectively represented by Goddesses Lakshmi and Kali.
Saraswati from the colonial times
Bengal’s Saraswati worshipping tradition has gone through many cultural changes holding the tides of time. Earlier on in the flourishing feudal times when the famously foppish ‘Babu’s of Bengal’s gentry patronized the trade of entertainment Goddess Saraswati found loyal followers in the forbidden courtesan quarters of music and dance. She was the deity of fine arts whoquietly entered the academic chambers with the advent of English education and establishment of schools and colleges in colonial Bengal. As education became a must for achieving a successful career in British India, ‘Sree Panchami’ or ‘Shukla Panchami’ which is the auspiciousdate of Saraswati worship on the fifth day of the ‘Shukla Paksh’ or the new moon cycle in the winter month of Magh, became an important fixture on Bengal’s culture calendar.
Debendranath Tagore, proponent of the One God Brahmo Samaj and father of the Nobel Prize winning bard Rabindranath Tagore was famous for his expensive living before leaving all the allure behind in search of the almighty. His Saraswati celebrations at the ‘Jorashako Thakurbari’once became the talk of the town when the budget exceeded more than a lakh, an extravagant amount in the late 1830s, sweeping all the Sandesh (a cottage cheese sweet delicacy) and Marigold of the city.
Eminent writer Bibhuti Bhushan Bandyopadhayay’s early 20th century nature classic ‘Aranyak’ starts with the mention of its protagonist visiting his friend’s hostel celebration of the SaraswatiPuja in the evening, a chance visit which takes him to his life changing meadows. And let us not forget Pather Panchali’s young Apu catching his first glimpse of a rabbit running behind the bushes far away from the locality on a sublime Saraswati Puja evening.
The Paul family legacy
Another landmark Saraswati event of old Calcutta which has continued unchanged to the new millennium is that of eminent pharmacist and one of the most significant personalities of the 19thand the 20th century Butto Kristo Paul’s. Here at the more than a century and a quarter year oldPuja the pristine white goddess is draped in two essentially green sarees. The first drape is that of a relatively ordinary green ‘Tant’ saree with which she arrives at the Shovabajar B.K. Paul mansion from Kolkata’s clay Tussaud Kumartuli. The second saree in which the goddess standsresplendent on the dais of worship is an ornate green Benarasi specially picked from the city’sprominent garment hubs. The sacred green Benarasi saree is later donated to any lady in need for propagating philanthropy who is restricted to partake non vegetarian food while wearing it.
Green perhaps for heralding the youth and fertility of spring.
Saraswati is further adorned with ornaments from the family’s treasury all dedicated to the goddess including bracelets, head gear and more made to order following divine desire and devotee’s fancy.
“She is further seen holding a silver Veena flanked by two swans, a canopy of white lotus made of pith, the national tricolor on both sides and four female associates” which is the identity of our family says Arindam Paul, Butto Kristo’s fifth generation and a lawyer by profession.
The beginning of Saraswati Puja in the family can be credited to the academic culture of medicine and pharmacy started by Butto Kristo with his legendary Edwards Tonic. That apart the family maintains its prolonged book reading, music, acting and various other performing arts tradition particularly on the Sree Panchami evening after performing the puja. The family owns two heirlooms of ancient literature wrapped in old red cloth, hand written in Sanskrit on parched tree skin paper, placed within wooden planks, which are scripts of epics Ramayan and Mahabharat religiously placed at the feet of the deity of words and knowledge on the occasion.
“An interesting ritual of the occasion is its ‘Boron’ or the tradition of seeing the goddess, who is our daughter, off to her husband’s heavenly abode. The effigy of the goddess is placed at the centre of the ‘Alpona’ or the hand painted white floor decor adorned courtyard and circled by the women of the household, particularly the married ones, a minimum of seven. Silver cups called ‘Mugli Hari’ on silver tray called ‘Kulo’ filled with many ritualistic materials like Chaal or rice, Kori or conch shells, Holud or turmeric, Supari or betel nuts, Hartaki or the Indian Walnut, ‘Baheda’( small medicinal fruit) etc are carried on head by the woman leading the ritual. She also carries a special water holder called the ‘Garu’ to sprinkle water all through the sevenrounds they take around the goddess. That is further associated with a special silver tray called ‘BoronDala’ carrying umpteen other mandatory goods like Dhan(rice), Job(barley), Sarisha(mustard), Kalo Teel(black sesame seeds) , Mung Kalai(green lentil gram), Doi(curd),Madhu(honey), Chamor( a hairy fan for the gods), Silver Jati ( betel nut cutter), Sankho ( conch),SilverTeer Kati( special ritualistic sticks) , Chini (sugar), Pan (betel leaf), Paner Khili( small conical shapes made with the betel leaf) given five each to the goddess and the swans and the Sree( a special cone used for worship) made of Chal Guro or rice powder. That apart there are stone cups meant for specific substances like the ‘Nuri’ or a sacred stone smeared with Tel(oil)Holud(turmeric) along with Doi (curd), Madhu (honey). The process ends with feeding Sandesh, imparting the warmth of the lamps to the goddess and ‘Kanakanjali’ which is accepting a fistful of rice from the daughter of the house as a symbol of settling her parental debts before seeing her off to her in–laws. The leading lady sits on the worship dais till she gets to know about the goddess’s homeward journey”…..as shared by Chandrima Paul, another scion of the Paul family.
The immersion procession is dotted with carbide lights upto the Ganges where the clay is rinsed off with artificial water and the century old structural ‘Kathamo’ is brought back home.Incidentally the same is sent for creating the goddess’s idol again the subsequent year on the 2ndof the Bengali month of Magh to Kumartuli.