Hayagrivaहयग्रीव

Hayagriva is Vishnu with the head of a horse: the form the god assumed to recover the Vedas when they were stolen, and in consequence the Vaishnava deity of knowledge, eloquence and study. White as moonlight, seated with the goddess of learning's own attributes of book and rosary, he is the figure to whom students are commended before examinations and scholars before undertakings, a horse-headed counterpart, within Vishnu's sphere, to Saraswati's patronage of the word.

The story

The central myth exists in more than one form. In the telling found in the Mahābhārata, the demons Madhu and Kaiṭabha stole the Vedas from Brahma as he slept and hid them in the depths of the waters; Vishnu, assuming the horse-headed form, descended and recovered them, restoring the sacred word to the creator so that creation could proceed. In other Purāṇic accounts the name belongs first to a demon: a horse-necked asura seizes the Vedas, and Vishnu slays him, in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa's version through the Matsya avatar. The tradition thus knows both a divine and a demonic Hayagriva, and the texts are untroubled by the doubling; what is constant is the theft of the Vedas and their return by Vishnu.

Worship

Hayagriva's cult, though never among the largest, is old and persistent. He is honoured particularly in the Śrī Vaiṣṇava tradition of the south, where the theologian-poet Vedānta Deśika composed a celebrated hymn to him and where he is worshipped as the giver of learning; images show him white-bodied and four-armed, bearing conch and discus with the book and the gesture of teaching. In Assam, the Hayagriva Madhava temple at Hajo is an ancient centre of his worship, notable for drawing Buddhist as well as Hindu pilgrims. His annual remembrance falls on the full moon of Śrāvaṇa, and recitation of his mantras remains a customary prelude to study.