While a handful of works on the goddess Sarasvatī do exist, most notably Mohammad Israil Khan's Sarasvatī in Sanskrit Literature (1978), the bibliography of modern scholarship on Sarasvatī presents a piecemeal and unsatisfactory assessment of Sarasvatī's place in Indic art and literature. To this relatively barren scholarly landscape, Catherine Ludvik's study represents a significant and valuable contribution.

The most impressive, and most valuable, aspect of the book lies in the wide range of sources it considers. The first half of the book surveys representations of Sarasvatī in Sanskrit literature from the Hindu traditions, covering Vedic, epic, and puranic representations of Sarasvatī. The second half of the volume turns its attention to materials even less documented in scholarly discourse, addressing the goddess's early iconography and Buddhist representations of Sarasvatī in the Sutra of Golden Light. Full Sanskrit verses supporting virtually every quality ever ascribed to the goddess are provided in the extensive footnotes. The discussion of iconographic evidence is supported by twenty-five black-and-white plates. Most impressively, and most importantly, the volume includes in an appendix the full text of the Sarasvatī chapter from the Sutra of Golden Light. The appendix provides both the full Sanskrit text with English translation rendered by R. E. Emmerick (1996) and the full Chinese text with an English translation of the author's own rendering, formatted to facilitate verse-by-verse comparison.

Ludvik avoids the much-politicized debate of if, when, and where the “real” Sarasvatī River flowed, which enriches the volume as it allows her to focus on the textual and iconographic evidence. Ludvik states plainly in her introduction that her discussion of Sarasvatī as a river is restricted to “textual geography” and that she considers herself unqualified to comment on the much debated “map geography” of the Sarasvatī River (pp. 3–4). Despite this disclaimer, however, she assumes a simplistic correlation between textual descriptions of the river and the empirical geology of the ancient world that will make many historians uncomfortable. In comparing what she characterizes as the Vedic descriptions of Sarasvatī as a mighty, uncontrollable river with the more serene river of the Mahāhbhārata, Ludvik writes that the changing poetic description of the river “…in fact reflects what geological studies tell us: widespread changes occurred in the configuration of river channels as a result of tectonic movement” (p. 88). While it may be true that the geological record is well established, and Ludvik's own assessment of the textual trends regarding Sarasvatī is indeed persuasive, such a direct historical connection between the geological and textual worlds needs to be argued for more extensively.

This lack of persuasive argument is a problem throughout the work, especially as it relates to historiography. Each of the four parts of the study is followed by a “retrospective” of the author's interpretation of the data. But these retrospectives are minimalist in nature, and leave the reader wondering why, exactly, it is important to consider this variety of literary and figural evidence that the volume brings together. Surely the compatibility of the many sources consulted stems from something deeper than their common use of and reverence for a goddess named Sarasvatī. More extensive and persuasive arguments regarding why, exactly, the particular shape and scope of the project are important would only enhance the study. For example, the reasons for assessing early sculptures of the eight-armed Mahiṣāsuramardinī in light of the fifth-century description of Sarasvatī in Yijing's Chinese rendering of the Sutra of Golden Light are never discussed, as if the shared feature of eight-arms creates a self-evident connection across historical and cultural distances.

The issue of dating textual evidence is also problematic, as illustrated in her discussion of four puranic texts (the Mākaṇḍeya, Matsya, Vāyu, and Viṣṇudharmotara Purāṇas). The author creates historical links between these particular texts and early sculptures of the goddess, but the dating of the purāṇas is notoriously troublesome. The vexing issue of dating purāṇas is evinced in Ludvik's own introduction to the puranic chapter, where dates considered for the Matsya Purāṇa vary by eight centuries (pp. 117–118). The author ultimately relies on the dates provided in previous scholarship, in spite of the fact that most of the scholarship she cites was published more than half a century ago and is questioned by many contemporary scholars of the Sanskrit purāṇas.

While these issues may undermine the author's particular historical vision, they in no way detract from the value of the material that Ludvik has painstakingly compiled and considered. Without a doubt, Ludvik's work constitutes a valuable reference addition to any personal library. Scholars concerned with the portrayal of Sarsvatī or any other goddess in specific Indic textual traditions will find the volume an invaluable tool for searching out comparisons or broader historical and cultural contexts.