Saraswathi: the deity of Kavis (artists)

Photo: Barbie Robinson

“Even a stupid man can learn the sastra-philosophy from the teachings of the teacher. But poetry is only given to the person who has...pratibha and that too only once in a while.”

-Aesthetic philosopher Bhamana (7 AD)

A Kavi, narrowly defined in English as poet, traditionally encompasses artist/priest in the Vedic connotation and occupies a unique place in contemplative practices. A Kavi is someone who has the power not just to experience the Divine (Atman or Brahman or Consciousness) which is beyond language and expression, but is gifted with the ability to reveal or signal this experience. She does this through aesthetic forms including mantra, ritual, poetry, dance, sculpture and visual arts.

At the heart of these artforms is the unfolding of what Sanskrit aesthetic philosophers have called Pratibha in literature which is Rasa in dance. Pratibha literally means luminescence. It denotes the brilliance of the Kavi’s recognition of his unity with all of life. In other words, it is the brilliance of his Atman or soul because that is the same as the Universal soul. A Kavi holds this experience in the movement of his artistic unfolding—that is the gift of Saraswathi. As the deity of Vac or unfolding into form that which is sourced in complete unity of experience, it is her prowess that flows through the Kavi and moves him to become the formal unfolding of his Pratibha.

The Kavi does not express with a purpose of ‘performing’—it is a choiceless happening as a result of her contemplative intent and her swabhaava or innate temperament. When people attend such an event, they are moved to do so through the same contemplative intent—that is they wish to dissolve their own separateness and move into unity. The ‘spectators’ are called ‘sahrdaya’ or those who share the same heart space (hridaya) as the Kavi. They are in fact moving in the same emotional world as the Kavi. Therefore, when the Kavi’s Pratibha unfolds, it is in that moment also the Pratibha experience of the sahrdaya.

The gift of bringing to others the highest experience of unity was the reason a Kavi was revered above a scholar or intellectual. It is only a Kavi who can bring the visceral taste of Pratibha in the instant of his own unfolding to others in his heart-space. Hence it is said in the Vedas that there can be no ritual without Saraswathi because it is only her gift that can bring the Kavi/priest and the people who are together in the moments of the ritual into the luminescent freedom of her Consciousness.