Invoking Lakshmi: The Goddess of Wealth in Song and Ceremony

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION The Goddess Arrives in Delhi It was autumn in Delhi, that majestic time of year when the sky sparkles a bright blue and evenings resonate with a gentle coolness. A season of delightful reprieve from the summer’s heat, autumn is a time to celebrate life’s bounty. As its refreshment mediates against all kinds of torpor, many experience this season as an expression of the goddess. Even the name Autumn is one of her names.1 This is a time of movement and excitement, a time of visiting and of receiving guests. It is therefore no wonder that this is the time to receive the most desirable guest of all, for this is when the gracious goddess visits her earthly devotees and infuses them with her blessings. In particular, autumn is the most auspicious time for invoking Lak∑m¥, beloved goddess of beauty, wealth, prosperity, and abundant good fortune. In every neighborhood, people were cleaning house, some of them also scrubbing the exterior walls, applying fresh coats of whitewash or paint. They were preparing for D¥vål¥,2 the Festival of Lights celebrating Lak∑m¥. Everyone and everything seemed to be in on the celebration. Temples, homes, shops, taxis, and the streets themselves were decorated and made ready for the goddess’s arrival. In the marketplaces, strings of tiny electric lights sparkled in the trees and from awnings. When night fell, firecrackers would compete with the sound of devotional music on public loudspeakers. On the day of the new moon, women decorated the steps leading to their doors with beautiful designs in bright-colored powders, tracing footsteps for the goddess of wealth to find her way into their homes. Alongside the footsteps they placed rows and rows of small clay lamps, and at nightfall, they lit the lamps, their cotton wicks saturated with ghee,3 which emitted an exquisite, golden brilliance. These small lamps were also placed up on the flat rooftops, so that the entire house was lit up in a kind of landing pattern for Lak∑m¥ to follow as she descended from the heavens. With an invitation of 1 2 INVOKING LAKSHMI such beauty and luminosity, how could the goddess resist gracing these homes with her presence? I had been invited to attend my first p¶jå, or ceremonial worship of the deity, in a private home on the outskirts of Delhi. Veena, the woman of the house, was performing a D¥vål¥ p¶jå, for which she had set up a temporary altar in a corner of the bedroom. Having spent the past few days in cleaning and preparation, she appropriately began the actual ritual at dusk, when lamps are lit to dispel darkness. The central image of worship was a small framed lithograph print of the goddess Lak∑m¥, which had been set into a large stainless steel bowl filled with puffed rice. Veena lit several sticks of sweet, highly fragrant incense and began to recite prayers and make offerings as she waved a small brass lamp fueled with ghee. Here again was that exquisite golden light. She was invoking the goddess, inviting her to enter the home and impart her blessings. Despite the steadfastness with which she performed the ritual motions, however, there was an impression of mild disorder, imprecision , and distraction: some of the liquid offerings spilled out of their containers, while powdered offerings blew away and onto the nearby bed, staining the bedcover with indelible vermilion and turmeric splotches. Children (hers and the neighbors’) were running through the house and out into the lanes. Her husband would chase after them and bring them inside, after which they would wriggle free and resume their gleeful romping and attempting to get into the box of firecrackers. Despite the distractions and having to stop and start several times, Veena continued, nonplussed. It was clear from her relaxed demeanor that all was proceeding well. Although as a visitor I could only perceive the ordinary messiness of life that would somehow stand in the way of drawing down the divine into that house on that night, the hostess proceeded with a calm certainty that this was the p¶jå, with spills, color, ringing bells, and interruptions, for as Veena sang supplicatory prayers to the Mother of the Universe, her own children were beseeching her to please hurry up and give them their sweets and sparklers. This jumbly melange of activities struck me as what the goddess of abundance must stand for—life, bright...