ದೀಪಾವಳಿ, ಲಕ್ಷ್ಮಿ ಪೂಜೆ | Deepavali, Lakshmi Puja

This is the new moon that ends the dark fortnight of Ashwina, the darkest night of the festival and the one on which Lakshmi is worshipped. In North India it is Diwali itself, the central day of the whole sequence. In Karnataka it sits between two days that carry more household weight, Naraka Chaturdashi before it and Bali Padyami after, but for merchants and for anyone who keeps accounts it is the day of the year.

Pradosha, and what that does to the date

The reference moment is pradosha, the period following sunset, reckoned for this purpose as the three muhurtas after the sun goes down, a little under two and a half hours. The day that carries Lakshmi Puja is the day during whose pradosha Amavasya is running.

The reason is plain enough: the puja is performed after dark, with lamps, and it would make no sense to fix its date by a tithi that had already ended by the time the lamps were lit. Once again the rite decides the day rather than the day deciding the rite.

Set this beside Naraka Chaturdashi, two days before, whose reference moment is arunodaya in the dark before sunrise. Two observances a couple of days apart are decided at opposite ends of the night, and the consequences are visible. When Amavasya begins during the day and runs through the evening, both the pre-dawn bath and the evening puja can fall on the same date. When it begins after sunset, they separate. This is why the number of days in Deepavali appears to change from year to year, and why a household in Bengaluru and a household in Delhi can be reading the same tithis and lighting their lamps on different evenings.

A narrower pradosha, the window around dusk on Trayodashi, is what the monthly Pradosha Vrata uses. The word is the same and the windows are reckoned differently, which is worth knowing before comparing two almanacs that both say pradosha.

What is done

The house is cleaned out beforehand, since Lakshmi is said not to enter a house that is not swept, and lamps are set in rows along the parapet, the steps and the window ledges. The name means exactly that: deepa avali, a row of lamps. A rangoli is drawn at the threshold and the door is left open.

The puja itself is to Lakshmi, usually with Ganesha beside her and in many households with Kubera and with Saraswati. Coins, jewellery and the account books are placed before the lamp. Traders close the year’s ledgers on this night and open new ones, a rite Gujarat and Maharashtra call chopda pujan and Karnataka merchants keep without a special name. In North India the new commercial year begins here, which is one reason the day carries so much more weight there than it does in the South.

The stories

Several strands converge on this night and no single one explains it. The oldest is simply the darkest night of the year’s clearest month, lit against itself. Lakshmi is said to have risen from the churning of the ocean on an Amavasya. The Ramayana tradition has Ayodhya lighting lamps for Rama’s return from exile, which is the version told most often in the North. Jains keep the same night as the nirvana of Mahavira, and Sikhs as Bandi Chhor Divas, the release of Guru Hargobind and fifty-two princes from Gwalior. It is a night that several traditions independently decided to fill with light.

A note on the month

Amanta calendars, which Karnataka follows, place this new moon at the end of Ashwina. Purnimanta calendars place it in the middle of Kartika, because their month turned at the previous full moon. Both are describing the same night. When a North Indian source says Kartika Amavasya and a Kannada one says Ashwayuja Amavasya, they have not disagreed about anything.