Lakshmi Puja Vidhi

Lakshmi Puja is a central ritual of Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, observed on the new moon night, Amavasya, of the Hindu month of Kartik. Its observance is described in the Padma Purana, Uttara Khanda, chapter 122, its own Dipavali chapter. The festival's wider theological framework draws on the Skanda Purana's Kartik Mahatmya, one of the most extensive texts devoted to a single month's observance in Hindu tradition. This puja honors Goddess Lakshmi, the deity of wealth, abundance, and wellbeing, together with Lord Ganesha, the remover of obstacles. He is worshipped alongside her so that prosperity arrives without the obstacles that might otherwise block it. The ceremony is performed in homes across India and among Hindu communities worldwide, carrying the belief that inviting the Goddess into a clean, well-lit space brings blessings of prosperity and harmony for the coming year.

The observance begins well before nightfall, with the thorough cleaning and decoration of the home, since Lakshmi is believed to enter only spaces kept clean and welcoming. The worshipper then purifies body and mind through Achamana, sipping water from the right palm while reciting a short prayer, before sitting facing the sacred space that has been prepared with an idol or image of Lakshmi alongside Ganesha.

Ganesha is invoked first, as in nearly all Hindu ritual, to remove any obstacles that might interfere with the puja or with the prosperity it seeks to invite. Lakshmi is then formally invoked into her image, often accompanied by recitation of the Sri Sukta, a Vedic hymn to the Goddess recited widely across Lakshmi worship traditions.

Many households perform a symbolic bath, Abhisheka, offering water, milk, or other sacred liquids to the idol. Fresh clothing or adornments are then offered to both deities, treating them as honored guests deserving the same care a family would extend to a cherished visitor arriving for the year's most important night.

Food offerings, Naivedya, follow, often including sweets prepared specifically for the occasion, alongside the fuller sequence of offerings, water, flowers, incense, and a lit lamp, that make up the broader Shodashopachara, the traditional sixteen-step sequence of offerings used in Hindu temple and home worship. Coins, gold, or account books are frequently placed before the Goddess as well, particularly among trading and business families, seeking her blessing over the coming year's finances.

The Aarti follows, the lit lamp offered before both deities in a circular motion while devotional songs are sung, and mantras or prayers specific to Lakshmi are chanted throughout, often continuing well after the formal offerings have concluded as families linger in the Goddess's presence.

Once the offerings are understood to have been accepted, they are distributed as Prasad among family members and guests, and lamps are lit throughout the home and set along windowsills, doorways, and rooftops, both to welcome Lakshmi and to mark the household's participation in the wider festival illuminating the entire community on this single night.

While the core elements of the puja, purification, invocation, offerings, and Aarti, remain consistent, regional variations and family traditions influence the specific steps, mantras, or items used from household to household. The underlying spirit nonetheless remains the same everywhere it is observed: a sincere invitation to the Goddess of prosperity to make her home, if only for this one significant night, in a space kept clean and worthy of her presence.