पावका न इति मन्त्रस्य । मधुच्छन्द ऋषिः । गायत्री छन्दः । सरस्वती देवता । श्रीमिति बीजशक्तिः कीलकम् । इष्टार्थे विनियोगः । मन्त्रेण न्यासः ॥ या वर्णपदवाक्यार्थस्वरूपेणैव वर्तते । अनादिनिधनानन्ता सा मां पातु सरस्वती ॥ श्रीं पावका नः सरस्वती वाजेभिर्वाजिनीवती । यज्ञं वष्टु धिया वसुः
pāvakā na iti mantrasya | madhucchanda ṛṣiḥ | gāyatrī chandaḥ | sarasvatī devatā | śrīmiti bījaśaktiḥ kīlakam | iṣṭārthe viniyogaḥ | mantreṇa nyāsaḥ || yā varṇapadavākyārthasvarūpeṇaiva vartate | anādinidhanānantā sā māṃ pātu sarasvatī || śrīṃ pāvakā naḥ sarasvatī vājebhirvājinīvatī | yajñaṃ vaṣṭu dhiyā vasuḥ
"She who abides as the very essence of sound, word, sentence, and meaning, beginningless, endless — may that Sarasvatī protect me. 'Śrīṃ. Purifying for us, Sarasvatī, rich in rewards — may she desire our sacrifice, benevolent of thought.'"
55595753b3db · published Aug 12, 2026, 5:00:00 AM UTC
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It is worth noting the list: varṇa, pada, vākya, artha — "sound, word, sentence, meaning." This is the ladder of language, and in Indian linguistic science it is examined down to the finest detail. Varṇa is sound, meaningless in itself.
Pada is a word: sounds combined into something meaningful. Vākya is a sentence: words combined into a statement. Artha is meaning: that for whose sake all this exists.
And it is said that the goddess is the very essence of all four. Let us add what is worth noting here, for this question is one of the central ones in Indian thought. It was asked: where does meaning live — in the sound, in the word, or in the sentence?
One school (Mīmāṃsā) answered: in the word; another (Bhartṛhari) — that meaning belongs to the whole sentence, and words are abstractions from it. The present verse does not settle the dispute but declares the goddess the essence of all levels at once. The Vaiṣṇava side enters this dispute and holds the side of the whole; and her rule was cited when reading the Mahāvākya: the great saying cannot be torn from the narrative, for meaning belongs not to words but to what is said.
That is, the dispute over where meaning lives turns out, for her, to be a dispute over how to read scripture; and this, to my mind, is the best example of how grammar in this literature was never merely grammar.