Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 2.djvu/211

 fourteen gems of the ocean; "after a long time appeared the great goddess, inhabiting the lotus, clothed with superlative beauty, in the first bloom of youth, covered with ornaments, and bearing every auspicious sign; adorned with a crown, with bracelets on her arms, her jetty locks flowing in ringlets, and her body, which resembled burning gold, adorned with ornaments of pearl. This great goddess appeared with four arms, holding a lotus in her hand; her countenance of incomparable beauty. Thus was produced the goddess Padma or Srī, adored by the whole universe; Padma by name. She took up her abode in the bosom of Padma-nabha, even of Heri." Vol. I. page 206, is an account and a sketch of this goddess of beauty and of prosperity. I have a very ancient and time-worn brazen image, representing Lachhmī seated on an elephant; she has four hands, the two superior hands are raised as high as her head; one holds a lotus-bud, the other something not unlike one; each hand also supports an elephant; their trunks unite above her head, and from two water-vessels they are pouring water on an emblem of Mahadēo, which rests on the crown of the head of the goddess. The lower hands are empty, the palm of one is raised, the other turned downwards. This image is very ancient and most singular: she is the goddess who presides over marriage, and, as the deity of prosperity, is invoked also for increase of children, especially male children. She bears the title of Rembha, as the sea-born goddess of beauty.

Moor gives a drawing, much resembling the above, of a cast in brass, which he considers to be Devi, the goddess, a form of Durgā.

SARASWATĪ.

Saraswatī, the daughter of Brahma, and wife of Vishn[)u], is represented as a white woman, playing on a sitar. She is adored as the patroness of the fine arts, especially music and rhetoric; as the inventress of the Sanscrit language, of the Devanagry character, and of the sciences which writing perpetuates. This goddess was turned into a river by the curse of a Brahman, and, at the Trivenī, the river Saraswatī is supposed to join the