- Benzaiten
Benzaiten (, ) is the Japanese name of the goddess
Saraswati ; there was an important river in ancientIndia of this name (seeVedic Saraswati River ). Worship of Benzaiten arrived in Japan during the 6th through 8th centuries, mainly via the Chinese translations of the "Sutra of Golden Light ", which has a section devoted to her. She is also mentioned in theLotus Sutra .Her Sanskrit name is "Sarasvatî Devî", which means "flowing water", and so Benzaiten is the goddess of everything that flows: water, words (and knowledge, by extension), speech, eloquence, and music. The characters used initially to write her name, read "Biancaitian" in Chinese and "Bensaiten" in Japanese (辯才天), reflected her role as the goddess of eloquence. Because the
Sutra of Golden Light promised protection of the state, in Japan she became a protector-deity, at first of the state and then of people. Lastly, she became one of theSeven Gods of Fortune , and the Sino-Japanese characters used to write her name changed to 弁財天 (Benzaiten), which reflects her role in bestowing monetary fortune. Sometimes she is called Benten, although this name refers to the goddessLakshmi .In the
Rig-Veda (6.61.7) Sarasvati is credited with killing the three-headedVritra , also known as Ahi ("snake"). This is probably one of the sources of Sarasvati/Benzaiten's close association with snakes and dragons inJapan . She is enshrined on the Island ofEnoshima inSagami Bay , about 50 kilometers south ofTokyo , and numerous other locations throughout Japan; and she and a five-headed dragon are the central figures of theEnoshima Engi , a history of the shrines on Enoshima written by the Japanese Buddhist monkKokei (皇慶) in AD 1047. According to Kokei, Benzaiten is the third daughter of the dragon-king of Munetsuchi (無熱池; literally "lake without heat"), known inSanskrit asAnavatapta , the lake lying at the center of the world according to an ancient Buddhist cosmological view.Benzaiten has been syncretized with some
Shinto goddesses.External links
* [http://homepage.mac.com/bartraj2/EnoshimaPt-1/goddessindex-1.html A Study of the Enoshima Engi]
* [http://www.sacred-texts.com/journals/oc/ts-sgb.htm Sacred Texts account of Benzaiten]ources
*Japan and Indian Asia by Hajime Nakamura. Publisher: Firma KLM, 1961. Publication Date: 1961
*India and Japan: A Study in interaction during 5th cent - 14th century - By Upendra Thakur .
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