Sārasvata and the Vedas

The ṛshi Dadhīca had a son named Sārasvata, born to him through the river Sarasvatī. In a drought that lasted twelve years, every other ṛshi (seer) forgot the Vedas. Sārasvata alone kept his recitation, and he taught the Vedas again to sixty thousand ṛshis. The Mahābhārata tells this at the Sārasvata-tīrtha (a sacred bathing place) on the river Sarasvatī.

The birth of Sārasvata

The ṛshi Dadhīca was performing tapas (austerity) on the banks of the Sarasvatī. He offered tarpaṇa (water offerings) to the devas through the sacred river. Indra watched ascetics who gained great powers, because those powers might threaten his own place. He decided to disturb Dadhīca. He sent the beautiful apsarā Ālambushā to break Dadhīca’s tapas.

Dadhīca saw the divine beauty of Ālambushā as she came near, and his seed fell from him without his will. He was a man of strict discipline. He caught the seed in his cupped hands and did not let it fall on the ground. He placed it in a leaf-cup.

The river Sarasvatī was moved by her devotion to this great ṛshi. She took the seed and held it in her womb. When the time came she bore a son. She came out of the river with the child and brought him to Dadhīca in the assembly of ṛshis. She gave the son to his father and said that she had carried and borne him out of devotion to the ṛshi.

Dadhīca was full of joy. He took the child and smelled his head again and again, as a loving father does. He named the boy Sārasvata, which means “son of Sarasvatī”. Then he gave the river a vara (a boon): the pitṛs and the devas who receive tarpaṇa through her waters would always be satisfied. He praised the river with many words of devotion.

Dadhīca’s bones and the weapons

The Śalya Parva also tells how Dadhīca gave up his life. The daityas and dānavas had grown so many that the devas could not defeat them with any weapon. Indra called the devas together and said: “The only way to destroy these asuras is a weapon made from the bones of Dadhīca. Go to him and ask him to give up his body for our sake.”

The devas went to Dadhīca. He did not hesitate, he did not complain, and he did not ask why. He agreed and gave up his life. He died willingly for the good of the devas.

Indra had these weapons made from his bones:

• Gadās (maces)
• Vajras (thunderbolts)
• Cakras (discuses)
• Śūlas (tridents)

Many other weapons were made as well. The vajra was forged from Dadhīca’s backbone, and it held brahma-tejas (the spiritual power of a great ṛshi’s tapas). With it Indra killed ninety-nine thousand daitya and dānava warriors. Dadhīca reached the eternal, imperishable worlds of the righteous.

The twelve-year drought

Some years after Sārasvata was born, a drought fell on the land and lasted twelve years. All the ṛshis scattered to look for food. They went to different regions and lived wherever they could find something to eat. Hunger, hardship and life away from home made every one of them lose his daily Vedic practice (svādhyāya). When the drought ended and the ṛshis came back to their āśramas, none of them could remember the Vedas. The long break in recitation had wiped away what they had learned over a whole life.

Sārasvata had stayed in his place for all twelve years. His mother Sarasvatī gave him fish (matsya) to eat every day through the drought. Fed by his mother’s gifts, he never stopped his daily svādhyāya. His recitation of the Vedas went on without a break for twelve years.

A ṛshi who came back from the drought heard that Sārasvata still held the Vedas, and he told the other ṛshis. They all came to Sārasvata and begged him to teach them. There were sixty thousand of them.

The question of studentship

Sixty thousand great ṛshis had come to a child to learn. Sārasvata asked them to follow the proper form: they must become his śishyas (students) in the traditional way, with him as their guru. The ṛshis hesitated. Some of them objected that he was a child (bāla) and they were elders.

Sārasvata answered with a firm word on dharma: “Dharma must not be broken. A man who teaches without the proper relationship, and a man who learns without it, are both destroyed. Learning received outside the proper sampradāya (line of teaching) becomes a cause of enmity and of ruin for both. What counts is not age, grey hair, wealth or kinship. It is the proper dharmic way that makes the teaching valid. This rule has come down through tradition, and tradition is supreme.”

When they heard this, the sixty thousand ṛshis agreed. They received the Vedas from Sārasvata, a child and the son of a river. They did their duty of studentship (darbha-śishyatva) and sat before him with bundles of kuśa grass, the traditional sign of a student. In this way the Vedic tradition was restored.

Sources

• Mahābhārata, Śalya Parva, Chapter 51 (the account of the Sārasvata-tīrtha on the Sarasvatī river)