The Saraswathi Pooja is the most important festival honoring the Hindu goddess of knowledge and wisdom. Observed every year on the final day of Maha Navaratri, Saraswathi Pooja involves offerings and prayers devoted to Saraswathi. The festival is believed to be auspicious for seeking the blessings of Saraswathi and for the commencement of academic endeavors.

Saraswathi is the Hindu goddess of knowledge and learning. She is the personification of true wisdom and is the consort of Lord Brahma, the god of creation. Regarded as the mother of the Vedas, Saraswathi represents intelligence, consciousness, creativity, enlightenment, spirituality, music and the arts. She is the very antithesis of ignorance and darkness. Saraswathi is venerated for imparting secular knowledge to humans as well as for revealing the divine, eternal wisdom necessary to achieve moksha, or liberation from the cycle of life and death. Poets, musicians and artists revere Saraswathi as the inspiration for their work and the source of their knowledge.

Hindus believe that Saraswathi endowed humans with powers of speech, learning and wisdom, and has four arms representing the different faculties of leaning – mind, intellect, instinct and ego. Saraswathi holds in two of her hands the Vedas, the sacred scriptures of Hinduism symbolizing eternal knowledge, and a mala, or rosary, representing spirituality and the power of meditation. With the other two hands she plays the veena, a string instrument representing music and the arts as well as the harmony inherent in true wisdom.

Goddess Saraswathi is usually portrayed dressed in white, the color of purity, and rides a white swan.
The swan has mythical status in Hindu culture, where it is known for its ability to separate milk from water in a mixture of both. This discriminative ability is allegorical for the ability to distinguish truth from falsehood, an aptitude necessary to attain true wisdom.

According to legend, Saraswathi Pooja commemorates the birth of Saraswathi – the day Brahma created her and infused her with the power of speech. The Saraswathi Pooja is an important festival in Hindu culture which highly regards knowledge and learning as well as the enlightenment that comes from wisdom. Parents involve their children in the celebrations and prayers during the Saraswathi Pooja, both to receive the blessings of the goddess of knowledge and to instill the importance of education and learning in the children. In fact, in certain parts of India, young children are introduced to their first alphabets during the Saraswathi Pooja, initiating them into the world of scholarship. This ceremony is called vidyarambham, literally ‘commencement of knowledge.’

During the Saraswathi Pooja, idols and images of the goddess are worshiped with prayers and offerings of fresh flowers and fruits. Books, pens, and musical instruments are placed before images of Saraswathi, and it is thought to be auspicious to commence on new studies and educational endeavors on this day. Teachers, or gurus, are also honored during the Saraswathi Pooja for their part in learning, and special prayers are usually organized in educational institutions. Since Saraswathi is also the presiding deity of all musical disciplines and the arts, she is honored by musicians and artists during the Saraswathi Pooja.

The worship and celebration of Saraswathi underscores the importance of knowledge and wisdom in Hindu culture. Philosophically, Saraswathi is the embodiment of true knowledge who bestowed humans with powers of erudition and intellect. Therefore, Saraswathi’s blessings are of paramount importance to those seeking to gain knowledge and wisdom. Learning was also highly regarded as spiritual development is the natural result of true knowledge and wisdom. In Hindu philosophy, ‘knowledge of the absolute,’ or jnana-yoga, is one of the paths to liberation, and this path was given great importance by such saints as Adi Shankara and Swami Vivekananda.

The Saraswathi Pooja is a festival of great religious and social significance. Saraswathi is also known by the name Mahavidya, or supreme knowledge, and the celebration of the personification of knowledge herself serves to reinforce faith in the power of true wisdom. Furthermore, by instilling in young children the importance of education, Hindu society as a whole is strengthened, with the outcome being a culture rooted in knowledge and learning.