Amit Misra

In the "Hinduism" thread a few posts down, I displayed my ignorance of the goddess Saraswati's marital status. Hinduwoman admonished me as follows:-
I am not (yet) a communist, and was brought up by a reasonably devout mother, who admired Saraswati enough to make me memorize some of the common hymns to her. When I cribbed to an aunt about how Ma never told me about Saraswati being Mrs. Bramha, my aunt smiled and said "maybe because she was embarassed?"
Here's the story my aunt told me about the relation between Saraswati (Saru) and Bramha (BigB).
It seems that BigB being the creator of the world, created Saru. This girl was so charming, intelligent, talented, etc, etc, that BigB fell in love with her. Saru wasn't very keen on the relationship, but things sort of came down to incest at BigB's initiative. (To be fair, whoever BigB chose as a partner from among his creation would have been a daughter to him). The upshot of his having forced sex on Saru was that he was cursed by her and all the other gods (his children?) to never be worshipped. Which, says my aunt, explains why there are no temples to BigB, and no mention of him in popular brahminism.
Amit

hinduwoman

Both Saraswati's marriage and her curse is a later addition.

Since she is 'vakdevi' from whom the vedas flow it is natural to equate her with Brahma's wife, though in earlier literature Brahma has no wife as such.
Her curse too is made up much later to explain why Brahma is no longer worshipped. It is because Brahma lost out in popularity stakes with Vishnu, Shiva and Shakti. He remained the god of Brahmans and is worshipped only in Puspak --- of course he has got a wife there too, Savitri, with whom he had a quarrel.

Amit Misra

In my continuing survey of popular brahminism, I spoke to my grandmother, aged 82, about Saraswati. She says that the tendency to describe Saraswati as Bramha's wife is "an invention of modern times"(naye zamane ki ijaad "). She, as a child, never came across such a beleif. And, she is certainly not a communist: her father was Rai Bahadur (Name Withheld) Bajpai,a staunch imperialist and loyal subject of the British Empire, and she is a chip off the old block.
Which brings us to relative and absolute time. Hinduwoman says, of her own (redoubtable) knowledge of hinduism that , but that:
.
...leaving me still confused.
Let me re-state the case.
1. In early literature, Bramha has no wife, but a series of sons: Sanat, Sanandan, et al. He later apparently gets sick of his parthenogenetic male progeny, and produces a sereis of daughters. No wife is involved in all this.
2. At some point, Bramha has sex with Saraswati (remember, we're mixing up legend, popular beleif and literary sources, but none of these contradicts that the old 4-headed goat did actually, you know, ... whatever). No wife is in evidence here, including Saraswati.
3. Early-twentieth century brahminical traditions of this part of the country do not recognize Saraswati as Mrs. Bramha, though they are pretty sure about Lakshmi being Mrs. Vishnu, Parvati, Uma, Sati, et al being the successive but identical Mrs. Shiva in their successive incarnations.
4. Hinduwoman, under the influence of hindutva, insists that hindus beleive that Saraswati is Bramha's wife.
Which leads me to conclude:
1. That the religious beleifs of my clan are different from those of hinduwoman and her ilk, but both sets of people insist that they are hindus;
2. That there is no such thing as standard hinduism, as has been proposed millions of times by people more erudite than I can ever hope to be;
3. That Saraswati is more likely to be Brahma's wife if you are a hindutva-person; subscribing to the modern canon, and is less likely to be Bramha's wife if you were brought up in the oral tradition of the Kanyakubja Brahmins of Uttar Pradesh.
Cheers

hinduwoman

Saraswati being Brahma's wife does not have anything to do with Hindutva.
It is that traditions in differing regions are different. So far as I remember from my grandmother in my childhood (Hindutva was nowhere then) I was told this story is in the Puranas (have n't checked on it though).
In Bengal for example Saraswati only has a lyre and books, in HP she holds a number of weapons --- obviously different stories in different areas gained currency because as so many have said there is no standard Hinduism.

victorialis

Pardon me for interrupting, but that seems like an advantage in the long term. People, however, exist in the short term. How is this tasty paradox managed?

hinduwoman

The paradox is managed by what is called the 'Great Tradition'.

Every regional deity is automatically assumed to be a form of one of the pan-Indian gods. For example the Jagganath is actually a tribal god, but is identified with Krishna; the Bengali snake goddess, a purely local goddess, is said to be a daughter of Siva.

As for stories that vary, well the human mind is capable of complicated gyrations and ignoring contradictions when it comes to faith. So all stories are assumed to be 'true'. We have 350 versions of Ramayana itself, some of wildly varying from the main story --- all are 'valid' [shrug].

victorialis

hinduwoman, despite my obtuse way of phrasing my question, you've understood what I was trying to ask.

350 Ramayanas are bound to capture a great many shades of meaning, for those who like, want or need them. How often do we hear a truth which is both complete and interesting? There is, happily, always more.