Saraswati with sitar

Resin statuette of Saraswati, goddess of music, poetry, rhetoric, and the sciences. She is often depicted holding a vina, a stringed instrument very similar to a sitar. The vibrations of all creation arise from the strings, expanding around her like waves. Since the Sanskrit language is also composed of these vibrations, she carries a palm-leaf manuscript representing the Vedas, one of the oldest texts ever written.