Saraswati is the Hindoo goddess of learning. She is represented as seated in a water lily and playing on a lute. Throughout Bengal her worship is celebrated with more or less pomp on the fifth day of the increase of the moon, in the Bengali month of Magha or Falgoon (February). As the popular Shastras reckon the commencement of spring from this date, the people, especially the young and gay of both sexes, put on basantee or yellow garments, and indulge in all sorts of low merriment, manifesting a depraved and vitiated taste.

Every Hindoo, young or old, who is able to read and write, observes this ceremony with apparent solemnity, abstaining from the use of fish on that day as a mark of reverence to the goddess. The worship is performed either before an image of the goddess, or before a pen, ink-bottle and pooti (manuscript), which are symbolically regarded as an appropriate substitute for the image. The officiating priest, after reading the prescribed formula, and presenting rice, fruits, sweetmeats, flowers, &c., directs the votaries of the goddess to stand up with flowers in their hands and repeat the usual service, beseeching her to bestow on them the blessings of learning, health, wealth, good luck, longevity, fame, &c. Apart from its idolatrous feature, it is a rather strange sight to see a number of youths, after going through the process of ablution and changing their clothes, stand up before the goddess in a body, and in a devotional spirit address her in prayer for the blessings above enumerated. Even apart from its superstitious character, it is decidedly objectionable on the score of its purely secular tendency, as it makes no allusion whatever to the primary object of all prayer, viz., the atonement and pardon of sin and the salvation of the soul—an element in which the religious ceremonies of the Hindoos are singularly deficient.

It was reported of Sir William Jones that when he studied Sanskrit, he used to place on the table a metal image of this goddess, evidently to please his Pundit. Let it not be inferred from this that he advocated the continuance of idolatry; far from it, but even in appearance to acquiesce in homage to an idol made of clay and straw is to withhold from the Most High the reverence, gratitude and obedience due to Him alone. The early formation of a prayerful habit divested of any idolatrous feature will always exercise a healthy religious influence on the mind in maturer years.

In every chatoospati or school, the Brahmin Pundit and his pupils worship this goddess with religious strictness. The Pundit setting up an image, invites all his patrons, neighbouring friends and acquaintances on this occasion. Every one who attends must make a present of one or a half Rupee to the goddess, and returns home with the hollow benediction of the Brahmin. To so miserable a strait have the learned Pundits been reduced of late years, that they anxiously look forward to the anniversary of this festival as a small harvest of gain to them, as the authoritative ministers of the goddess. They make from fifty to one hundred Rupees a year by the celebration of this Poojah, which keeps them for six months; should any of their friends fail to make the usual present to the goddess, they are sure to come and demand it as a right.[82]

Females are not allowed to take a part in the worship of this goddess, simply because the great lawgiver of the country has denied them this privilege. They, however, now-a-days read and write in spite of the traditional prohibition, but are religiously forbidden to say their prayer before the goddess, though she is herself an embodiment of their sex. It is quite obvious that feelings of lamentable debasement arise in their hearts at the annual recurrence of this festival, strongly reminding them of the unhealthy, unnatural ordinance of their great lawgiver.

The day following the Poojah, the women are not permitted to eat any fresh prepared article of food, but must be satisfied with stale, cold things, such as boiled rice and boiled pease with a few vegetables, totally abstaining from fish, which they cannot do without on any other day. Taking place on the sixth day of the increase of the moon, this part of the festival is called Situl Shasthi as enjoining the use of cold food.

As a mark of homage to the goddess, the Hindoos do not read or write on that day. Hence the day is observed as a holiday in public and mercantile offices where the clerks are mostly Hindoos. Should any necessity arise they write in red ink, as all the inkstands in the household are washed out and placed before the goddess for annual consecration. They are, however, not prevented from attending to secular business on this occasion. Unlike the sanguinary character of the Poojahs of Doorga and Kali, no bloody sacrifices are offered to this gentle goddess, but as regards rude merriment, the one in question does not form an exception to the others. Revelry and unbecoming mirth are the grand characteristics of this as indeed of almost every other Hindoo festival. It is sickening to reflect how indecency and immorality are thus unblushingly countenanced under the sacred name of religion.

Loose women celebrate this festival, and keep up dancing and singing all night in a bestial state of intoxication to the utter disgust of all sober-minded men. The Moharajah of Burdwan used to expend large sums of money on this occasion, engaging the best dancing girls of the metropolis and illuminating and ornamenting his palace in a splendid style, besides giving entertainment to his English and Native friends. Vast multitudes of people from Calcutta still resort to his palace and admire the profuse festoons of flowers and the yellow appearance of everything, indicative of the advent of spring,—a season which, according to popular notion, invites the mind to indulge in licentious mirth. It is needless to enumerate farther the many obscenities practised in songs and actions on this occasion.