Sarasvati and Brigit (6)
Sacred Sound continued
Ó hÓgáin links this story with Brigit as patron saint of milch cows (24) and the goddess whom poets adored, and although Brigit is not explicitly connected with music or musical instruments like Sarasvati, the connection is implicit in the linking of musical and poetic gifts which is attested in many texts. The Caldron Of Poesy text, for instance, remarks that the Caldron of Érmae is "the estuary of wisdom.. where one approaches the musical art" . (25)
It seems that the ancient Irish had an almost (to us) heightened awareness of sound and were able to use it in different ways. There are references in the lives of the saints to people prophesying from the sound made by a chariot, and in battle the Irish warriors used the sounds of instruments, voices and poetry as a device to intimidate and frighten their enemies, encourage their comrades and celebrate victory.
The Creative Word
As we have noted above, there is a Hindu concept that creation is set in motion by ultimate reality in the form of sound. The Vedic deity who embodies the idea of sacred sound is Brihaspati, the master of the force (inherent in the incantation). He is the lord of prayer and religious devotion and also the deity who presides over spells, also known as Brahmanaspati. Some scholars have seen him as another version of Agni, Fire, and of the fire of heaven. The deity Brahmanaspati, the descendant of Brihaspati, is eventually transformed into the god Brahma (and, as we have seen, in later Hindu texts Brahma's female half is Sarasvati).
This leads us on to the concept of brahma in later Hinduism, and the possible evolution of the idea which leads to the brahma as the absolute, the ground of all being. Renou talks of the "sacred formula, of a mystical or esoteric type, which opens the world of the gods and puts a flow of force at the disposal of the Brahmana..." (26) One scholar (Oldenberg) has suggested that the sequence of meanings assigned to brahma runs from 'magic force' to 'sacred word' to 'absolute'. Bloomfield talks of the sacred word brahma starting as a prayer, charm, sacred formula, or religious act and becoming "the symbol of holy thought in its highest utterance, the outpouring of the soul in its highest longings. It is the best wish of a spirtually-minded and gifted people that becomes for a while a personal god and at last the divine essence of the universe". In fact the etymology of brahma is controversial today and not all scholars would accept this progression of meaning.
(Of interest is a note by Stokes to his translation of the entry about Brigit in Cormac's Glossary. In it he suggests a possible link between the name Brigit, Brihaspati and the Old Norse Bragi, god of poetry and eloquence. However, if Brihaspati and brahma do come from a root *blagh meaning 'sacred utterance', (an idea not accepted by all scholars in the case of brahma as we have noted), then the name Brigit, which comes from a root *bhrgh meaning 'high, exalted', is not related.)
The power of the word as a creative force is found also in Irish and Welsh medieval texts and in folklore. The Old Irish word for poetry creth and the Welsh cognate prydydd contain the idea of shaping and the linguist Calvert Watkins has suggested that the image underlying these is one of magical transformation. In the Welsh Câd Goddau or Battle of the Trees, Gwydion the magician appeals to God for help and is told:
By means of speech, o magician,
Conjure up lordly trees -
A hundred soldiers in hosts -
And impede the vigorous one... (27)
In both Ireland and Wales the opening lines of St John's Gospel were thought to protect the wearer from illness and misfortune and they were often written down and placed in a small pouch worn round the neck. In Ireland this was known as the custom of Leabhar Eoin. The opening lines of this gospel state:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God.
All things were made by him; and without him was
not any thing made that was made...
In the Irish text, The Finding of Cashel, it is stated that the mighty Lord "made the whole world by his sole word from its yellow (?) foundations" and so it is Christianity which is the vehicle by which a similar concept to the Hindu is brought into later Celtic literature. In fact the author of the gospel had used the pre-Christian Greek idea of the Logos (reason, discourse, utterance) emanating from the mouth of God and creating the universe, a concept which had arisen from the philosophy of the Stoics and Neo-Platonists and which no doubt helped to sell the Christian idea of Incarnation to the Greek world. In all three cultures - Hindu, Greek, Celtic - there may have been an Indo-European predisposition to the acceptance of this concept.
Purity
Christianity is also responsible for a parallel development between Sarasvati and Brigit. As we have seen, Sarasvati becomes associated with purity and transcendence in later Hinduism. She is sattvic or spiritual, associated with the sattva guna, the pure spiritual thread of prakriti, matter. In a similar way the Christian St Brigit is pure and spiritual; as with all female saints, her purity and chastity is emphasised as a great virtue. St Brigit plucks out her eye rather than marry; Sarasvati's sexuality is played down and she flees from Brahma when he desires her.
In Irish and Scottish folklore however, Brigit is often seen as a domestic goddess connected with the idea of the hearth, and of prosperity, nourishment and protection of livestock; she is also the foster-mother, sometimes even the mother, of Jesus which may point back to a previous incarnation as a mother goddess. Yet the pervading image in the Scottish Gaelic Carmina Gadelica is of the saint as a calm and mild maid with golden locks and white palms, and once she is described as having a fairy swan, reminiscent of Sarasvati's swan vehicle. In Celtic mythology swans are associated with shape changing and with travel to or from the Otherworld - a sort of transcendence - while in the folklore young maids are sometimes referred to as swans, with undoubted connotations of purity, so again there are some parallels here between the two goddesses in this respect. In Celtic mythology however, unlike the Hindu, there is usually a theme of thwarted or unrequited love in connection with the interworld travel of the swans.
Water, Fire and Illumination
As we have seen, the early conception of Sarasvati is inextricably linked with water, as are hymns and poetry and in Celtic tradition inspiration and wisdom are also associated with water. Although Brigit does have water associations as one might expect, she is more usually connected with the sun and with fire and these also play a part in Hindu and Celtic ideas about the nature of poetry and inspiration.
Setting foot on the shore of Ireland, the poet of the Tuatha De Danaan, Amergin, recited a poem in which he declared that he is the god who fashions fire for a head, meaning, according to Macalister, that he is a giver of inspiration. A gloss on the Caldron of Poesy text, which uses watery imagery in reference to poetry, also refers to tein fesa, the fire of knowledge. (28) Another gloss in the same text talks of the sun as a source of inspiration, for it is the sun which causes a protuberance on herbs which, when eaten, conveys the poetic gift and activates the caldron of poetry ('poetic inspiration from the Boyne or the sun'). (29) And in the wisdom text The Colloquy of the Two Sages (30) fire and water imagery are again used of poetry; one of the two contending poets, Ferchertne, says that he has come from the 'streams of Galion' (the greatest of which is the Boyne) and Néde states that his name is 'Well of riches' (of knowledge) as well as 'Wrath of fire', 'fire of speech'.. 'straight-artistic with bitterness(?) out of fire'. (31) Ó hÓgáin talks of the folklore view of the poem as a burst of energy coming out of the poet's mouth, conjuring up the image of a dragon breathing fire.
If this seems confusing after all we have said about water and inspiration it must be pointed out that in Celtic tradition fire and water held a special and important place and together they were a potent mix. The action of the sun, a source of fire, on the waters was seen as a dynamic and activating force.
