Benzaiten (''

shinjitai are the simplified forms of kanji used in Japan since the promulgation of the Tōyō Kanji List in 1946. Some of the new forms found in ''shinjitai'' are also found in Simplified Chinese characters, but ''shinjitai'' is generally not as extensiv ...

'': 弁才天 or

弁財天 Benzaiten (''shinjitai'': 弁才天 or 弁財天; ''kyūjitai'': 辯才天, 辨才天, or 辨財天, lit. "goddess of eloquence"), also simply known as Benten (''shinjitai'': 弁天; ''kyūjitai'': 辯天 / 辨天), is a Japanese Buddhist g ...

; ''

kyūjitai ''Kyūjitai'' ( ja, 舊字體 / 旧字体, lit=old character forms) are the traditional forms of kanji, Chinese written characters used in Japanese. Their simplified counterparts are ''shinjitai'' ( ja, 新字体, lit=new character forms, lab ...

'': 辯才天, 辨才天, or 辨財天, lit. "

goddess A goddess is a female deity. In many known cultures, goddesses are often linked with literal or metaphorical pregnancy or imagined feminine roles associated with how women and girls are perceived or expected to behave. This includes themes of s ...

of eloquence"), also simply known as Benten (''shinjitai'': 弁天; ''kyūjitai'': 辯天 / 辨天), is a

Japanese Buddhist Buddhism has been practiced in Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while exten ...

goddess who originated mainly from

Saraswati Saraswati ( sa, सरस्वती, ) is the Hindu goddess of knowledge, music, art, speech, wisdom, and learning. She is one of the Tridevi, along with the goddesses Lakshmi and Parvati. The earliest known mention of Saraswati as a go ...

, the

Hindu Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism.Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...

goddess of speech, the arts, and learning, with certain traits deriving from the warrior goddess

Durga Durga ( sa, दुर्गा, ) is a major Hindu goddess, worshipped as a principal aspect of the mother goddess Mahadevi. She is associated with protection, strength, motherhood, destruction, and wars. Durga's legend centres around co ...

. Worship of Benzaiten arrived in Japan during the sixth through eighth centuries, mainly via

Classical Chinese Classical Chinese, also known as Literary Chinese (古文 ''gǔwén'' "ancient text", or 文言 ''wényán'' "text speak", meaning "literary language/speech"; modern vernacular: 文言文 ''wényánwén'' "text speak text", meaning "literar ...

translations of the ''

Golden Light Sutra The Golden Light Sutra or ( sa, IAST: Suvarṇaprabhāsottamasūtrendrarājaḥ), also known by the Old Uygur title Altun Yaruq, is a Buddhist text of the Mahayana branch of Buddhism. In Sanskrit, the full title is ''The Sovereign King of Sutra ...

'' (

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

: ''Suvarṇaprabhāsa Sūtra''), which has a section devoted to her. During the medieval period onwards, Benzaiten came to be associated or even conflated with a number of Buddhist and local deities, which include the goddess

Kisshōten Kisshōten (, lit. "Auspicious Heavens"), also known as Kichijōten, Kisshoutennyo (吉祥天女), Kudokuten (功徳天) is a Japanese female deity, adapted via Buddhism from the Hindu goddess Lakshmi. Kisshoutennyo is sometimes named as one o ...

(the Buddhist version of the Hindu

Lakshmi Lakshmi (; , sometimes spelled Laxmi, ), also known as Shri (, ), is one of the principal goddesses in Hinduism. She is the goddess of wealth, fortune, power, beauty, fertility and prosperity, and associated with ''Maya'' ("Illusion"). Alo ...

, whose role as goddess of fortune eventually became ascribed to Benzaiten in popular belief), the snake god

Ugajin is harvest and fertility ''kami'' of Japanese Mythology.Watsky, Andrew Mark. (2004). Ugajin is represented both as a male and a female, and is often depicted with the body of a snake and the head of a bearded man, for the masculine variant, or ...

(the combined form of the two being known as 'Uga Benzaiten'), and the ''

kami are the deities, divinities, spirits, phenomena or "holy powers", that are venerated in the Shinto religion. They can be elements of the landscape, forces of nature, or beings and the qualities that these beings express; they can also be the sp ...

'' Ichikishimahime. Due to her status as a water deity, she was also linked with '' nāgas'',

dragons A dragon is a reptilian legendary creature that appears in the folklore of many cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but dragons in western cultures since the High Middle Ages have often been depicted as ...

, and

snakes Snakes are elongated, limbless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes . Like all other squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales. Many species of snakes have skulls with several more joi ...

. Apart from being a patron of music and the arts, she was eventually also worshiped as a bestower of monetary fortune and was reckoned as one of the

Seven Lucky Gods In Japanese mythology, the Seven Lucky Gods or Seven Gods of Fortune (, shichifukujin in Japanese) are believed to grant good luck and are often represented in netsuke and in artworks. One of the seven (Jurōjin) is said to be based on a historic ...

(''Shichifukujin''). Benzaiten is depicted a number of ways in Japanese art. She is often depicted holding a ''

biwa The is a Japanese short-necked wooden lute traditionally used in narrative storytelling. The is a plucked string instrument that first gained popularity in China before spreading throughout East Asia, eventually reaching Japan sometime duri ...

'' (a traditional Japanese lute) similar to how Saraswati is depicted with a

veena The ''veena'', also spelled ''vina'' ( sa, वीणा IAST: vīṇā), comprises various chordophone instruments from the Indian subcontinent. Ancient musical instruments evolved into many variations, such as lutes, zithers and arched harps.< ...

in Indian art, though she may also be portrayed wielding a sword and a wish-granting jewel ('' cintāmaṇi''). An iconographic formula showing Benzaiten with eight arms holding a variety of weapons (based on the ''Golden Light Sutra'') meanwhile is believed to derive from Durga's iconography. As Uga Benzaiten, she may also be shown with Ugajin (a human-headed white snake) above her head. Lastly, she is also portrayed (albeit rarely) with the head of a snake or a dragon.

Overview

Saraswati in Buddhism

The goddess Saraswati (Sanskrit: ''Sarasvatī'';

Pali Pali () is a Middle Indo-Aryan liturgical language native to the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pāli Canon'' or ''Tipiṭaka'' as well as the sacred language of ''Theravāda'' Buddhism ...

: ''Sarassatī'') was originally in the ''

Rigveda The ''Rigveda'' or ''Rig Veda'' ( ', from ' "praise" and ' "knowledge") is an ancient Indian collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns (''sūktas''). It is one of the four sacred canonical Hindu texts (''śruti'') known as the Vedas. Only one Sh ...

'' a river goddess, the deification of the

Sarasvati River The Sarasvati River () is a deified river first mentioned in the Rigveda and later in Vedic and post-Vedic texts. It played an important role in the Vedic religion, appearing in all but the fourth book of the Rigveda. As a physical river, i ...

. She was identified with Vach (Skt. ''Vāc''), the Vedic goddess of speech, and from there became considered to be the patron of music and the arts, knowledge, and learning. In addition to their association with eloquence and speech, both Saraswati and Vach also show warrior traits: Saraswati for instance was called the "

Vritra Vritra () is a danava in Hinduism. He serves as the personification of drought, and is an adversary of the king of the devas, Indra. As a danava, he belongs to the race of the asuras. Vritra is also known in the Vedas as Ahi (Sanskrit: ', li ...

-slayer" (''Vṛtraghnī'') in the ''Rigveda'' (6.61.7) and was associated with the

Maruts In Hinduism, the Maruts (; sa, मरुत), also known as the Marutagana and sometimes identified with Rudras, are storm deities and sons of Rudra and Prisni. The number of Maruts varies from 27 to sixty (three times sixty in RV 8.96.8). T ...

.Faure (2015). pp. 164-165. She was also associated with the

Ashvins The Ashvins ( sa, अश्विन्, Aśvin, horse possessors), also known as Ashwini Kumara and Asvinau,, §1.42. are Hindu deities, Hindu twin gods associated with medicine, health, dawn and sciences. In the ''Rigveda'', they are described ...

, with whom she collaborates to bolster

Indra Indra (; Sanskrit: इन्द्र) is the king of the devas (god-like deities) and Svarga (heaven) in Hindu mythology. He is associated with the sky, lightning, weather, thunder, storms, rains, river flows, and war. volumes/ref> I ...

's strength by telling him how to kill the

asura Asuras (Sanskrit: असुर) are a class of beings in Indian religions, Indic religions. They are described as power-seeking clans related to the more benevolent Deva (Hinduism), Devas (also known as Suras) in Hinduism. In its Buddhism, Buddhi ...

Namuchi. In a hymn in Book 10 of the ''Rigveda'' (10.125.6), Vach declares: "I bend the bow for

Rudra Rudra (; sa, रुद्र) is a Rigvedic deity associated with Shiva, the wind or storms, Vayu, medicine, and the hunt. One translation of the name is 'the roarer'. In the Rigveda, Rudra is praised as the 'mightiest of the mighty'. Rud ...

that his arrow may strike and slay the hater of devotion. I rouse and order battle for the people, and I have penetrated Earth and Heaven." Saraswati, like many other deities of the Hindu pantheon, was eventually adopted into Buddhism, figuring mainly in

Mahayana ''Mahāyāna'' (; "Great Vehicle") is a term for a broad group of Buddhist traditions, texts, philosophies, and practices. Mahāyāna Buddhism developed in India (c. 1st century BCE onwards) and is considered one of the three main existing bra ...

texts. In the 15th chapter of

Yijing The ''I Ching'' or ''Yi Jing'' (, ), usually translated ''Book of Changes'' or ''Classic of Changes'', is an ancient Chinese divination text that is among the oldest of the Chinese classics. Originally a divination manual in the Western Zhou ...

's translation of the ''

Sutra of Golden Light The Golden Light Sutra or ( sa, IAST: Suvarṇaprabhāsottamasūtrendrarājaḥ), also known by the Old Uygur title Altun Yaruq, is a Buddhist text of the Mahayana branch of Buddhism. In Sanskrit, the full title is ''The Sovereign King of Sutra ...

'' (''Suvarṇaprabhāsa Sūtra'') into

( Taishō Tripitaka 885), Saraswati (大辯才天女,

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese for ...

: ''Dàbiàncáitiānnǚ''; Japanese: ''Daibenzaitennyo'', lit. "great goddess of eloquence") appears before the

Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a śramaṇa, wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist tradition, he was ...

's assembly and vows to protect all those who put their faith in the sutra, recite it, or copy it. In addition, she promises to increase the intelligence of those who recite the sutra so that they will be able to understand and remember various '' dharanis''. She then teaches the assembly various mantras with which one can heal all illnesses and escape all manner of misfortune. One of the Buddha's disciples, the

brahmin Brahmin (; sa, ब्राह्मण, brāhmaṇa) is a varna as well as a caste within Hindu society. The Brahmins are designated as the priestly class as they serve as priests (purohit, pandit, or pujari) and religious teachers (guru ...

Kaundinya Kaundinya (Sanskrit कौण्डिन्य), also known as ''Ājñātakauṇḍinya'', Pali: ''Añña Koṇḍañña''),who was one of the first five Buddhist monks ( Pancavaggiya), follower of Gautama Buddha and the first to become an arha ...

, then praises Saraswati, comparing her to Vishnu's consort Narayani (Lakshmi) and declaring that she can manifest herself not only as a benevolent deity, but also as Yami, the sister of

Yama Yama (Devanagari: यम) or Yamarāja (यमराज), is a deity of death, dharma, the south direction, and the underworld who predominantly features in Hindu and Buddhist religion, belonging to an early stratum of Rigvedic Hindu deities ...

. He then describes her eight-armed form with all its attributes — bow, arrow, sword, spear, axe,

vajra The Vajra () is a legendary and ritual weapon, symbolising the properties of a diamond (indestructibility) and a thunderbolt (irresistible force). The vajra is a type of club with a ribbed spherical head. The ribs may meet in a ball-shape ...

, iron wheel, and

noose A noose is a loop at the end of a rope in which the knot tightens under load and can be loosened without untying the knot. The knot can be used to secure a rope to a post, pole, or animal but only where the end is in a position that the loop can ...

Benzaiten Surrounded by the Goddesses Kariteimo and Kenrochijin and Two Divine Generals, from Kichijoten shrine, c

It has been observed that Kaudinya's paean to Saraswati in Yijing's translation is derived from the ''Āryāstava'' ("praise of she who is noble"), a hymn uttered by Vishnu to the goddess Nidra (lit. "Sleep", one of the names applied to

) found in the ''

Harivamsha The ''Harivamsa'' ( , literally "the genealogy of Hari") is an important work of Sanskrit literature, containing 16,374 shlokas, mostly in the '' anustubh'' metre. The text is also known as the ''Harivamsa Purana.'' This text is believed to ...

''. As the ''Golden Light Sutra'' is mainly concerned with the protection of the state, it is not surprising that the fierce, weapon-wielding Durga, who was widely worshiped by rulers and warriors alike for success in battle, provides the model for the appearance assumed by Saraswati, characterized as a protectress of the Buddhist Dharma, in the text. Bernard Faure notes, " e emergence of a martial Sarasvatī may also have obeyed a more fundamental structural logic, inasmuch as Vāc, the Vedic goddess of speech, had already displayed martial characteristics. ..Already in the ''Vedas'', it is said that she destroys the enemies of the gods, the asuras. Admittedly, later sources seem to omit or downplay that aspect of her powers, but this does not mean that its importance in religious practice was lost." Womb Realm Mandala - Deities of the Western Outer Vajra section

Womb Realm Mandala - Deities of the Western Outer Vajra section

Saraswati is also briefly mentioned in the

esoteric Western esotericism, also known as esotericism, esoterism, and sometimes the Western mystery tradition, is a term scholars use to categorise a wide range of loosely related ideas and movements that developed within Western society. These ideas a ...

'' Vairochanabhisambodhi Sutra'' (Taishō Tripitaka 848) as one of the divinities of the western quarter of the Outer Vajra section (外金剛部院, Jp. ''Gekongōbu-in'') of the Womb Realm Mandala along with

Prithvi Prithvi or Prithvi Mata (Sanskrit: पृथ्वी, ', also पृथिवी, ', "the Vast One") is the Sanskrit name for the earth, as well as the name of a devi (goddess) in Hinduism and some branches of Buddhism. In the Vedas, her conso ...

, Vishnu (Narayana), Skanda (Kumara),

Vayu Vayu (, sa, वायु, ), also known as Vata and Pavana, is the Hindu god of the winds as well as the divine massenger of the gods. In the ''Vedic scriptures'', Vayu is an important deity and is closely associated with Indra, the king of ...

Chandra Chandra ( sa, चन्द्र, Candra, shining' or 'moon), also known as Soma ( sa, सोम), is the Hindu god of the Moon, and is associated with the night, plants and vegetation. He is one of the Navagraha (nine planets of Hinduism) and ...

, and their retinue. The text later also describes the

as Saraswati's symbol. The Chinese translation of this sutra renders her name variously as 辯才 (Ch. ''Biàncái''; Jp. ''Benzai'', lit. "eloquence"), 美音天 (Ch. ''Měiyīntiān''; Jp. ''Bionten'', "goddess of beautiful sounds"), and 妙音天 (Ch. ''Miàoyīntiān''; Jp. ''Myōonten'', "goddess of wonderful sounds"). Saraswati in the Womb Realm Mandala is portrayed with two arms holding a veena and situated between Narayana's consort Narayani and Skanda (shown riding on a

peacock Peafowl is a common name for three bird species in the genera ''Pavo (genus), Pavo'' and ''Afropavo'' within the tribe Pavonini of the family Phasianidae, the pheasants and their allies. Male peafowl are referred to as peacocks, and female pea ...

Benzaiten as a ''kami''

Benzaiten is a female ''

'' to Shinto with the name . She is also believed by

Tendai , also known as the Tendai Lotus School (天台法華宗 ''Tendai hokke shū,'' sometimes just "''hokke shū''") is a Mahāyāna Buddhist tradition (with significant esoteric elements) officially established in Japan in 806 by the Japanese m ...

Buddhists to be the essence of the ''kami''

, whose effigy she sometimes carries on her head together with a ''

torii A is a traditional Japanese gate most commonly found at the entrance of or within a Shinto shrine, where it symbolically marks the transition from the mundane to the sacred. The presence of a ''torii'' at the entrance is usually the simplest ...

'' (see photo above). As a consequence, she is sometimes also known as Benzaiten or Uga Benten.Ludvik, Catherine. “Uga-Benzaiten: The Goddess and the Snake.” Impressions, no. 33, 2012, pp. 94–109. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/42597966.

Bīja and mantra

The ''

bīja In Hinduism and Buddhism, the Sanskrit term Bīja () ( Jp. 種子 shuji) (Chinese 种子 zhǒng zǐ), literally seed, is used as a metaphor for the origin or cause of things and cognate with bindu. Buddhist theory of karmic seeds Various schools ...

'' or seed syllable used to represent Benzaiten in Japanese esoteric Buddhism is (सु, traditionally read in Japanese as ''so''), written in

Siddhaṃ script (also '), also known in its later evolved form as Siddhamātṛkā, is a medieval Brahmic abugida, derived from the Gupta script and ancestral to the Nāgarī, Assamese, Bengali, Tirhuta, Odia and Nepalese scripts. The word means "ac ...

. Benzaiten's

mantra A mantra (Pali: ''manta'') or mantram (मन्त्रम्) is a sacred utterance, a numinous sound, a syllable, word or phonemes, or group of words in Sanskrit, Pali and other languages believed by practitioners to have religious, ma ...

meanwhile is as follows:

Shrines

Benzaiten is enshrined on numerous locations throughout Japan; for example, the

Enoshima is a small offshore island, about in circumference, at the mouth of the Katase River which flows into the Sagami Bay of Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. Administratively, Enoshima is part of the mainland city of Fujisawa, and is linked to ...

Island in

Sagami Bay lies south of Kanagawa Prefecture in Honshu, central Japan, contained within the scope of the Miura Peninsula, in Kanagawa, to the east, the Izu Peninsula, in Shizuoka Prefecture, to the west, and the Shōnan coastline to the north, while the ...

, the

Chikubu Island is a small island in the northern part of Lake Biwa in Shiga Prefecture, in the Kansai region of Japan. It has been known since ancient times for the beauty of its scenery and for its small Shinto shrine and Buddhist temples. Administratively, ...

Lake Biwa is the largest freshwater lake in Japan, located entirely within Shiga Prefecture (west-central Honshu), northeast of the former capital city of Kyoto. Lake Biwa is an ancient lake, over 4 million years old. It is estimated to be the 13th ol ...

and the

Itsukushima is an island in the western part of the Inland Sea of Japan, located in the northwest of Hiroshima Bay. It is popularly known as , which in Japanese means "Shrine Island". The island is one of Hayashi Gahō's Three Views of Japan specified in ...

Island in

Seto Inland Sea The , sometimes shortened to the Inland Sea, is the body of water separating Honshū, Shikoku, and Kyūshū, three of the four main islands of Japan. It serves as a waterway connecting the Pacific Ocean to the Sea of Japan. It connects to Osaka ...

(Japan's Three Great Benzaiten Shrines); and she and a five-headed

dragon A dragon is a reptilian legendary creature that appears in the folklore of many cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but dragons in western cultures since the High Middle Ages have often been depicted as ...

are the central figures of the

Enoshima Engi The ''Enoshima Engi'' (江嶋縁起) is a history of the temples and shrines on Enoshima Island in Sagami Bay. It was written in Chinese language, Chinese, the scholarly language of the time, by the Japanese Buddhist monk Kōkei (monk), Kōkei in 10 ...

, a history of the shrines on Enoshima written by the Japanese Buddhist monk Kōkei (皇慶) in 1047. According to Kōkei, Benzaiten is the third daughter of the dragon-king of Munetsuchi (無熱池; literally "lake without heat"), known in Sanskrit as

Anavatapta Anavatapta (Sanskrit अनवतप्त "the Unheated", , also called "the Pond without Heat") is the lake lying at the center of the world, according to ancient Indian tradition. The name Anavatapta means "heat-free"; the waters of the lake w ...

, the lake lying at the center of the world according to an ancient Buddhist cosmological view. Shrine pavilions called either

benten-dō In Japanese a is a Buddhist temple dedicated to Benten or Benzaiten, goddess of wealth, happiness, wisdom, and music. Many such temples exist all over Japan. Because the goddess was originally the personification of a river, ''Benten-dō'' often ...

or , or even entire

Shinto shrine A is a structure whose main purpose is to house ("enshrine") one or more ''kami'', the deities of the Shinto religion. Overview Structurally, a Shinto shrine typically comprises several buildings. The '' honden''Also called (本殿, meani ...

s can be dedicated to her, as in the case of Kamakura's

Zeniarai Benzaiten Ugafuku Shrine , popularly known simply as Zeniarai Benten, is a Shinto shrine in Kamakura, Kanagawa, Kanagawa prefecture, Japan. In spite of its small size, it is the second most popular spot in Kamakura, Kanagawa prefecture after Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gū. Z ...

or Nagoya's

Kawahara Shrine The is a Shinto shrine and Buddhist Benten-dō located in the Showa ward of Nagoya is the largest city in the Chūbu region, the fourth-most populous city and third most populous urban area in Japan, with a population of 2.3million in ...

References

Bibliography

* * * *

External links

A Study of the Enoshima Engi
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