Maa Saraswati

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Who a Saraswati murti is usually bought for A Ganesha or a Lakshmi is mostly bought by the person who is going to keep it. A Saraswati is not. She is bought for a child sitting board exams, for a daughter who has just started riyaz, for a teacher on the last day of term, for a nephew leaving for a hostel. The buyer hands her over, and somebody else lives with her on a desk the buyer has never seen, for the next ten years. So the useful question is not which Saraswati photographs best. It is which one survives a desk. That is a harder test, and most of what is sold for the purpose fails it quietly. Her name is written Saraswati, Sarasvati and Saraswathi, and she is called Saraswati Mata or Maa Saraswati in the north, Sharada in Karnataka, and Vagdevi or Vani where the emphasis falls on speech rather than on learning. Which Saraswati idol suits a study table Four inches is the size that works on a desk, because it clears a stack of books without competing with the lamp. Measure the width rather than the height. The veena carries past her body on both sides, so a four inch Saraswati asks for more shelf across than a four inch Ganesha does, and that is the measurement people get wrong. Then the honest part, which is price. Most Saraswatis sold for a study table in India are light resin figures finished in gold, and they sit under 500. For a nine year old whose desk is also where the paint set lives, that is the right buy, and replacing it in three years costs nothing to regret. What we make is a different object: solid brass , in the five thousand band for the solo figure, heavy enough that it stays put when the desk gets knocked. It is for the desk somebody keeps into their thirties, for a shelf mandir, or for a gift handed over in front of a room. What we do not make, said plainly rather than left to be discovered. Nothing above four inches, so if you want a big size Saraswati for a hall or a school assembly, this is not the shop. No marble and no silver. Our solo Sar