Saraswati VandanaYa Kundendu

The first verse: "May she protect me"

The first verse is built on the word ya, "she who". It is repeated five times to build up a portrait before the prayer arrives in the last line:

• Ya kundendu tushara hara dhavala: she who is white as the kunda (jasmine) flower, the moon (indu), snow (tushara) and a pearl necklace (hara).
• Ya shubhra vastravrita: she who is clothed in white.
• Ya veena varadanda manditakara: she whose hands are adorned with the veena's fine neck.
• Ya shveta padmasana: she who sits on a white lotus.
• Ya Brahma-Achyuta-Shankara prabhritibhir devaih sada vandita: she who is always worshipped by Brahma, Vishnu (Achyuta), Shiva (Shankara) and the other gods.
• Sa mam patu Sarasvati Bhagavati nihshesha jadyapaha: may that Saraswati, the divine goddess who removes dullness without remainder, protect me.

The key word is jadya: sluggishness, inertia, the heaviness of a mind that won't take in or hold what it learns. The prayer asks her to remove it nihshesha, completely, leaving nothing behind. That is why students have prayed it for generations.

The second verse: "I bow to Sharada"

The second verse moves from asking to adoring. Saraswati is white (shuklam), the supreme essence of reflection on Brahman (brahmavichara sara), the primordial one who pervades the world. She holds the veena and a book, grants fearlessness (abhaya) and dispels the darkness of ignorance. She holds a crystal (sphatika) mala and is seated on a lotus. The verse ends: "I bow to her, the supreme goddess, Bhagavati, Sharada, the giver of intelligence (buddhiprada)."

Its metre and why it sounds grand

Both verses are in shardulavikridita ("the tiger's play"), a long nineteen-syllable metre with a pause after the twelfth syllable. It gives the vandana its stately, rolling sound, very different from the short four-line mantras most people know. When sung in assemblies each line is usually split at that pause.

When it is recited

This is the Saraswati Vandana of Indian school mornings, sung in assemblies at Kendriya Vidyalayas, Saraswati Shishu Mandirs, DAV schools and countless others. It opens Vasant Panchami and Saraswati Puja, begins music and dance lessons and recitals, and is said before study or an exam. It is also a good dhyana to recite before the Jai Saraswati Mata aarti or the Saraswati Chalisa. For a shorter daily japa, many add Saraswati's bija, Om Aim Saraswatyai Namah, after it.