A goddess revered in two civilisations, separated by thousands of kilometres of ocean — and a freshly released English book just made their connection impossible to ignore. Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju on Monday, October 19, 2026, congratulated the International Centre for Cultural Studies, Bharat on the release of the English edition of Enoshima: The Sacred Island of Benzaiten, calling the shared reverence for Goddess Saraswati in India and Benzaiten in Japan a testament to the two nations' 'deep civilisational ties.'

Rijiju extended special appreciation to the Ambassador of India to Japan and the book's translator for 'strengthening cultural understanding and the enduring friendship between our two nations.' The post tagged both @MEAIndia and @IndianEmbTokyo, signalling that this is an embassy-backed cultural initiative, not merely a private scholarly exercise.

Saraswati and Benzaiten: one goddess, two civilisations

The link Rijiju invokes is ancient and well-documented in comparative religious scholarship. Benzaiten — Japan's goddess of everything that flows, from music and eloquence to wisdom and water — arrived in Japan via Buddhist transmission routes from India, her iconography and attributes closely mirroring those of Saraswati, the Hindu goddess of knowledge and the arts. Enoshima Island, near Kamakura, is one of Japan's most revered Benzaiten shrines, drawing millions of pilgrims each year. An English edition of a book centred on that island carries both scholarly and diplomatic weight, making the shared heritage accessible to a global audience.

How the book fits India's Act East cultural strategy

This release is not an isolated gesture. Since diplomatic relations were established in 1952, India and Japan have maintained a sustained architecture of cultural cooperation agreements and people-to-people exchanges. The cadence accelerated after Prime Minister Modi's 2014 visit to Japan, which formally elevated civilisational and spiritual linkages as a pillar of the bilateral strategic partnership — sitting alongside defence, technology, and infrastructure cooperation under the Act East Policy framework.

Cultural publications of this kind serve a deliberate soft-power purpose: they give scholars, students, and general readers a concrete, emotionally resonant entry point into a partnership that is often discussed in the dry language of trade figures and defence pacts. 'Knowledge, wisdom and spirituality connect civilisations across borders,' Rijiju wrote — a framing that positions culture not as decoration around the bilateral relationship, but as its deepest foundation.

Embassy and MEA's quiet role in cultural diplomacy

The tagging of @IndianEmbTokyo and @MEAIndia is deliberately visible. It signals that the Ministry of External Affairs and the Indian Embassy in Tokyo are stakeholders in — and likely facilitators of — this publication. Embassy-backed cultural projects, from language institutes to heritage publications, are a standard tool in India's diplomatic toolkit in Japan, complementing the harder-edged elements of the partnership.

With India-Japan summit cycles and joint statements increasingly referencing people-to-people ties, expect the International Centre for Cultural Studies, Bharat and the Indian Embassy in Tokyo to build on this release with follow-up events — lectures, exhibitions, or further translations — that keep the civilisational narrative alive in public discourse on both sides.

In a bilateral relationship measured as often in missile ranges and semiconductor supply chains as in anything else, a book about a goddess on a sacred island reminds both nations what drew them together long before the strategic spreadsheets arrived.