William Jones’ Poem on Goddess Saraswati

Image Source: Edward Moor, The Hindu Pantheon (London, 1810), Plate 45

Came across this beautiful poem on Goddess Saraswati written by none other than William Jones, the philologist, orientalist and a judge at Fort William in the late eighteenth century. He is best known as the founder of the Asiatic Society.

What drew my attention to the poem was the mention of some familiar names such as Bhairavi, Bhopali to name of few. These are the names of ragas of the Indian classical music traditions with which I am familiar. William Jones uses several such ragas in the poem to bring forth the importance of Goddess Saraswati in the cultural traditions of the subcontinent. I include some excerpts from his note on the poem which is presented later.

According to Jones, the Hindu Goddesses are “represented as subordinate powers of their respective lords.” He mentions that Goddess Lakshmi is the consort of God Vishnu, the Preserver; Bhairavi is the wife of God Mahadev who Jones terms as the “genial power of fecundity”; and Saraswati is the consort of Brahma, the Creator. He enunciates the powers of Goddess Saraswati which are the “powers of Imagination and Invention, which may justly be termed creative.” Goddess Saraswati, therefore, is worshipped as the “patroness of fine arts, especially of Musick and Rhetorick, as the inventress of the Sanscrit Language, of the Devanagry Letters, and of the sciences, which writing perpetuates…” He goes on to draw Minerva Musica of the Greek mythology as a parallel to her. Minerva Musica is credited with the invention of flute and presides over literature.[1]

As for the poem, or the Hymn as he calls it, it is an ode to Goddess Saraswati as the creator of music. Jones correctly explains that the “Indians usually paint her with musical instruments in her hand: the seven notes, an artful combination of which constitutes Musick and variously affects the passions, as feigned to be her earliest production; and the greatest part of the Hymn exhibits a correct delineation of the Ragmala, or Necklace of Musical Modes, which may be considered as the most pleasing invention of the ancient Hindus, and the most beautiful union of Painting with poetical Mythology and the genuine theory of Musick.” [2]

A Hymn to Sereswaty[3]

Sweet grace of BREHMA’S bed!
Thou, when thy glorious lord
Bade airy nothing breathe and bless his pow’r
Satst with illumin’d head
And, in sublime accord,
Sev’n sprightly notes, to hail th’ auspicious hour,
Ledst from their secret bow’r:
They drank the air; they came
With many a sparkling glance,
And knit the mazy dance,
Like yon bright orbs, that grid the solar flame,
Now parted, now combin’d,
Clear as thy speech and various as thy mind.

YOUNG Passions at the sound
In shadowy forms arose,
O’er hearts, yet uncreated, sure to reign;
Joy, that o’erleaps all bound,
Grief, that in silence grows,
Hope, that with honey blends the cup of pain,
Pale Fear, and stern Disdain,
Grim Wrath’s avenging band,
Love, nurs’d in dimple smooth,
That ev’ry pang can soothe;
But, when soft Pity her meek trembling hand
Stretch’d, like a new-born girl,
Each sigh was musick, and each tear a pearl.

Thee her great parent owns
All-ruling Eloquence,
That, like full GANGA, pours her stream divine,
Alarming states and thrones:
To fix the flying sense
Of words, thy daughters, by the varied line,
(Stupendous art!) was Thine;
Thine, with pointed reed
To give primeval Truth
Th’ unfading bloom of youth,
And paint on deathless leaves nigh Virtue’s meed:
Fair Science, heav’n-born child,
And playful Fancy on thy bosom smil’d.

Who bids the fretted Vene
Start from his deep repose,
And wakes to melody the quiv’ring frame?
What youth with godlike mien
O’er his bright shoulder throws
The verdant gourd, that swells with struggling flame?
NARED, immortal name!
He, like his potent Sire,
Creative spreads around
The mighty world of sound,
And calls from speaking wood ethereal fire;
While to th’ accordant strings
Of boundless heav’ns and heav’nly deeds he sings.

But look! the jocund hours
A lovelier scene display,
Young HINDOL sportive in his golden swing
High-canopied with flow’rs;
While Ragny’s even gay
Toss the light cordage, and in cadence sing
The sweet return of Spring:
Here dark Virawer stands;
There Ramcary divine
And fawn-eyed Lelit shine;
But stern Daysasha leads her warring bands,
And flow in ebon clouds
Petmenjary her fading beauty shrouds.

Ah! where has DEIPIC veil’d
His flame-encircled head?
Where flow his lays too sweet for mortal ears?
O loss, how long bewail’d!
Is yellow Camod fled?
And blythe Carnaty vaunting o’er her peers?
Where stream Caydara’s tears
Intent on scenes above,
A beauteous anchorite?
No more shall Daysa bright
With gentle numbers call her tardy love?
Has Netta, martial maid,
Lock’d in sad slumbers her sky-temper’d blade?

Once, when the vernal moon
Blaz’d with resistless glare,
The Sun’s eye sparkled, and a God was born:
He smil’d; but vanish’d soon—
Then groan’d the Northern air;
The clouds, in thunder mutt’ring sullen scorn,
Delug’d the thirsty corn.
But, earth-born artist, hold!
If e’er thy soaring lyre
To Deipec’s notes aspire,
Thy strings, thy bow’r, thy breast with rapture bold
Red lightning shall consume;
Now can thy sweetest song avert the doom.

See sky-form’d MAYGH descend
In fertilizing rain,
Whilst in his hand a falchion gleams unsheath’d!
Soft nymphs his car attend,
And raise the golden grain,
Their tresses dank with dusky spikenard wreath’d:
(A sweeter gale ne’er breath’d)
Tenca with laughing eyes,
And Gujry’s bloomy cheek,
Melar with dimple sleek,
On whose fair front two musky crescents rise:
While Dayscar his rich neck
And mild Bhopaly with fresh jasmine deck.

Is that the King of Dread
With ashy musing face,
From whose moon-silver’d locks fam’d GANGA springs?
‘Tis BHAIRAN, whose gay bed
Five blushing damsels grace,
And rouse old Autumn with immortal strings,
Till ev’ry forest rings;
Bengaly lotos-crown’d,
Vairaty like the morn,
Sindvy with the looks of scorn,
And Bhairavy, her brow with Champa’s bound;
But Medhumadha’s eyes
Speak love, and from her breasts pomegranates rise.

Sing loud, ye lucid spheres;
Ye gales, more briskly play,
And wake with harmony the drooping meads;
The cooler season cheers
Each bird, that panting lay,
And SIRY bland his dancing bevy leads
Hymning celestial deeds:
Marva with robes like fire,
Vasant whose hair perfumes
With musk its rich-eyed plumes,
Asavery, whom list’ning asps admire,
Dhenasry, flower of glades,
And Malsry whom branching Amra shades.

MALCAUS apart reclines
Bedeck’d with heaven-strung pearls,
Blue mantled, wanton, drunk with youthful pride;
Nor with vain love repines,
While softly-smiling girls
Melt on his cheek or frolic by his side,
And wintry winds deride;
Shambhawty leads along
Cocabh with kerchief rent,
And Gaury wine besprent,
Warm Guncary, and Toda sweet in song,
Whom antelopes surround
With smooth tall necks, and quaff the streaming sound.

Nor deem these nuptial joys
With lovely fruit unblest:
No; from each God an equal race proceeds,
From each eight blooming boys;
Who, their high birth confess’d,
With infant lips gave breath to living reeds
In valleys, groves, and meads;
Mark how they bound and glance!
Some climb the vocal trees,
Some catch the sighing breeze,
Some, like new stars, with twinkling sandals dance;
Some the young Shamma snare,
Some warble wild, and some the burden bear.

These are thy wondrous arts;
Queen of the flowing speech,
Thence SERESWATY nam’d and VANY bright!
Oh, joy of mortal hearts,
Thy mystick wisdom teach;
Expand thy leaves, and, with ethereal light
Spangle the veil of night!
If LEPIT please thee more,
Or BRAHMY, awful name!
Dread BRAMY’s aid we claim,
And thirst, VACADEVY; for the balmy lore
Drawn from the rubied cave,
Where meek-ey’d pilgrims hail the triple wave.

Excepting the diacritical marks, I have posted the poem as given in the original source. An analysis of the poem will add to our understanding and appreciation of this poem/hymn. However, I have not found any. Only a person well-versed in both Hindustani music and Hindu divinity can do a proper analysis.

[1] William Jones, “A Hymn to Sereswaty,” The Asiatick Miscellany, Volume 1 (Calcutta: Daniel Stuart, 1785), 179-187, accessed 2 July 2024, https://books.google.co.in/books?id=HMFLAAAAcAAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&dq=sereswaty&source=gbs_navlinks_s

[2] ibid.

[3] ibid.