ORIGIN: Hindu (Vedic)
TYPE: Goddess of the spoken word.
INFORMATION: In some texts she is a daughter of Daksa and consort of Kasyapa. Alternatively she is the daughter of Ambhrna. Also known by the epithet "queen of the gods", Vac is the personification of the phenomenon of speech and oral communication. She gives the boon of hearing, speech and sight and she can lead a man to become a Brahman. She also personifies truth and sustains soma—the liquid essence of vision and immortality. She is said to have created the four Vedas, the basis of the earliest Hindu mythology. Though she takes a prominent place in the Rg Veda, Vac largely disappears from later Hindu traditions. She may have become syncretized with the goddess of wisdom, Sarasvati. She is generally depicted as an elegant womanly figure dressed in gold, but in the secondary capacity of a mother goddess she is also drawn as a cow.