Difference between revisions of "Sarasvathy"

Latest revision as of 17:12, 4 November 2017

Sarasvathy is the god of Human Language, serving as Satrap of the Board of Talk and Tale in the Celestial Bureaucracy’s Bureau of Humanity. Sarasvatys is primarily responsible for language, overseeing the gods of the Five Directional Tongues (Earthtongue, Skytongue, Flametongue, Seatongue, Treetongue), as well as their relatives Dragontongue, High Realm, and Riverspeak and other languages (though not the ur-language of Old Realm).

Sarasvathy appears as a bronze-skinned child with yellow hair, her body tattooed with letters and symbols that flow across her skin and shift to create phrases in all languages spoken by humans. Ironically, she never speaks a word, but this causes no difficulty in making herself understood: even without speech, anyone she speaks with feels instinctively what she would have said.

In the Primordial Era, Sarasvathy was a relatively minor divinity: while humans are numerous and their communications extensive, they spoke the eternal language of Old Realm, so the need for paperwork concerning human communication was far less than it has become. As a subordinate of Bahaiok the god of High Holy Speech, Sarasvathy oversaw human use of that tongue, and also worked to catalogue the strange new forms of speech which would leak on occasion into those human tribes living on Creation’s edges.

The expansion of languages by the Solar Deliberative during the First Age changed everything. Unlike Old Realm these languages demanded divine oversight, and Sarasvathy suddenly found herself elevated in both power and authority, overseeing numerous subordinates. With this rise and the fading of High Holy Speech, she displaced both her superior Bahaiok and the various powerful gods of stories to take charge of the Board of Talk & Tale, a post she holds securely to this day.

Sarasvathy works extensively with Meldre in the Division of Journeys, whose purview of communications and messengers aligns well with her own. She is known to be less cooperative with the gods of tale-telling in her own Board, perhaps remembering the time when their power eclipsed her own, or perhaps because Akyaquee, god of Stories remains a potent rival who could well pose a challenge for leadership of the Board.

Source: Adapted and expanded from original by Jiba on the unofficial Exalted Wiki.