Lakshmi
லட்சுமி लक्ष्मी
Also Sri, Mahalakshmi, Thirumagal, Padma, Kamala, Ashtalakshmi.
VaishnavaShaktaSmarta
Who this is
Lakshmi is wealth, and the tradition is careful about what it means by the word: she is prosperity of eight kinds, of which money is one, and the others are food, courage, offspring, victory, knowledge, success and the wealth of the earth itself. She came up from the churned ocean and chose Vishnu, and the Vaishnava tradition treats her as the one who intercedes, the reason a devotee is heard at all. She is famously restless and does not stay where there is dirt, quarrelling or idleness, which is why the house is cleaned before she is invited and why Diwali is a festival of sweeping as much as of lamps. Her sister is Alakshmi, misfortune, and some households see them both out of the door together.
How to recognise them
Seated or standing on a lotus, gold clothed, two or four armed, with lotuses in the upper hands and one hand in the gesture of giving so that coins fall from it. Two elephants pour water over her in the Gajalakshmi form that stands over temple doorways. As Ashtalakshmi she is eight, each with her own name and her own kind of wealth.
Family and companions
Wife of Vishnu, and born of the ocean rather than of parents. In the southern tradition Vishnu has Bhudevi, the earth, beside her, and the two are shown on either side of him. Kubera is the treasurer who keeps what she gives, and is worshipped with her at Diwali rather than in her place.
How they are worshipped
Friday; the eighth tithi; Diwali night; the Sravana Friday of the Varalakshmi vratam.
Friday is her day. The house is cleaned first, which is not preparation but part of the rite. Lamps are lit at the threshold and the door left open on Diwali night. The Sri Suktam is the Vedic hymn to her, the Kanakadhara Stotram is said for a household in want, and the Varalakshmi vratam in Sravana is kept by married women with a pot dressed as her face.
The stories
As they are told, with the disagreements left in
Why she came out of the ocean
When the ocean of milk was churned it gave up fourteen things, poison first and nectar last, and Lakshmi among them. Every god and asura present wanted her. She looked over the whole assembly and garlanded Vishnu, and the tradition makes much of the fact that she chose rather than was given. Before the churning she had left the gods because Indra had insulted a garland given to him by a sage, letting his elephant trample it; the churning was how they got her back, and the moral the puranas draw is that fortune leaves where it is treated carelessly.
The shower of gold
Adi Sankara, as a boy going for alms, came to a house so poor that the woman had nothing at all to give him but a single dried amla fruit she had been saving. He was so moved that he composed the Kanakadhara Stotram on the spot, asking Lakshmi for her. Gold amlas rained into the courtyard. The verse is still said by households in difficulty, and the point the telling makes is that she answered a gift that cost the giver everything she had, not a large one.
Where the regions differ
- Tamil
- Kerala
- Telugu
- Kannada
- North
- Maharashtra
- Bengal
- Punjab
- Assam
- Sri Lanka
- Nepal
- Gujarat
- Odisha
- Mithila
- Kashmir
- Tulu Nadu
- manipur
- rajasthan
- konkani
- sindhi
- jharkhand
- himalayan
- kodava
- Tamil Nadu
- The Varalakshmi vratam in Aadi or Avani is the women’s festival, with the kalasam dressed as her face, and Ashtalakshmi at Besant Nagar keeps all eight forms in one building.
- Andhra and Telangana
- Tiruchanur, where she is Padmavathi, is visited before Tirumala by custom, and the Varalakshmi vratam is kept as widely as in the Tamil country.
- Maharashtra
- Kolhapur Mahalakshmi is one of the shakti pithas and is read as her seat rather than as a consort shrine.
- Bengal
- Bengal keeps Kojagari Lakshmi Puja on the Sharad full moon rather than at Diwali, and the night is watched through, the name meaning who is awake.
- North India
- Diwali night is hers, with the account books opened, the door left open and the lamps kept burning, and Dhanteras two days before for the buying of metal.
Their days
Every one of these has a page of its own
Where to see them
From the temple directory
- Shri Mahalakshmi (Ambabai) Temple, Kolhapur Kolhapur, Maharashtra
- Ashtalakshmi Temple, Besant Nagar Besant Nagar, Chennai, Tamil Nadu
- Sri Padmavathi Ammavari Temple, Tiruchanur Tiruchanur, Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh
- Shree Mahalakshmi Temple, Mumbai Mumbai, Maharashtra
- Sripuram Mahalakshmi Golden Temple Thirumalaikodi, Vellore, Tamil Nadu
What is said
From the mantra library