Benzaiten

Benzaiten is the Japanese name of Sarasvati (also read "Saraswati"), which was originally a mighty river in ancient India (see Vedic Saraswati River). Later she became the eponymous deity of that river. Benzaiten arrived in Japan during the 6th through 8th centuries, mainly via the Chinese translations of the Sutra of Golden Light (金光明經), which has a section devoted to her. She is also mentioned in the Lotus Sutra.

As a river-deity, she came to be the goddess of everything that flows: words (and knowledge, by extension), speech, eloquence, and music. The characters used initially to write her name, read Biancaitian in Chinese and Benzaiten in Japanese (辯才天), reflected her role as the goddess of eloquence. Because the Sutra of Golden Light promised protection of the state, in Japan she became a protector-deity, at first of the state and then of people. Lastly she became one of the Seven Gods of Fortune, and the Sino-Japanese characters used to write her name changed to 弁財天 (no change in pronunciation), which reflects her role in bestowing monetary fortune. She is enshrined on the Island of Enoshima (江の島) in Sagami Bay, about 50 kilometers south of Tokyo, and she and a dragon are the central figures of the Enoshima Engi (江嶋縁起), a history of the shrines on Enoshima written by the Japanese Buddhist monk Kokei (皇慶) in 1047 A.D.

References

• "Sarasvati": in Digital Dictionary of Buddhism
• A Study of the "Enoshima Engi" (http://www2.gol.com/users/bartraj/goddessindex-1.html)