Varalakshmi Vratham / Varalakshmi Pooja / Varalakshmi Puja

Varalakshmi Vratham / Varalakshmi Pooja is one of the important hindu festivals celebrated in South India. This festival falls on the friday before the full moon day in the month of Adi / Sharavana month every year and this year we celebrated this pooja on July 27th, friday 2012. Varalakshmi, the goddess of wealth is worshipped on this day by many women and its believed that the goddess grants the boon/varam to them after performing the varalakshmi pooja. I started performing this vratham right after my marriage as its a tradition in my husband's side.

Early Morning, women get up and put traditional kolams in the frontyard. After taking headbath and wearing new or clean clothes, they make neivedhyams/prasadams to Goddess Varalakshmi. After that, they decorate the Kalasam in a grand way with all jewelleries and perform the varalakshmi vratham in detail. They tie a yellow thread with nine knots while performing this pooja and read the varalakshmi vratham story at the end. On this day, they invite many married women for thamboolam and give them prasadams. They all sing songs prasing Goddess Varalakshmi in the evening and chant "Varalakshmi Ashtothranamavali".

Kalasam Decoration :

Take a silver plate or your traditional pooja plate and spread it with raw rice. Coat the silver varalakshmi sombu/pot with turmeric paste and decorate the pot /kalasam with kumkum dots. Fill half the sombu with water. Add a coin,a small jewellery, a flower, a betal leaf and nut inside the pot. Coat the coconut with turmeric paste and keep it ready. Once its dried, draw the goddess face on its side perfectly and keep it ready. Spread five mango leaves on the top of the kalasam uniformly. Keep the coconut on its top such that the amman face should be clearly visible from the centre. After placing the coconut properly, take a new cloth and decorate the amman as shown in the picture. While decorating, make sure that the amman pot is not disturbed. After the kalasam is nicely decorated, keep it ready. Just before starting the pooja, invite the amman to your pooja by placing the kalasam on the layer of rice in the pooja plate. If mango leaves are not available in the region you live, substitute it with betal leaves. 

Pooja Place Arrangements :

Pooja place should be cleaned and arranged nicely before the day of varalakshmi pooja. On the pooja day, keep the flowers, other pooja items handy before starting the pooja. Keep few paper napkins on your side to wipe your hands in the middle. Keep the pooja vidhanam book ready with the pages pointing to Varalakshmi Pooja.

Prasadams :

In our household, we make 5 prasadam varieties and offer to the Goddess. We generally make Paramannam ( Sweet Rice ), Puliodhara, Medhu Vadai, Sundal, Boorelu, Appam, Payasams, Annam.

You can choose your prasadams based on your interests and item availability. Please see the recipes in the blog for your preparations.

Above all, doing the vratham with good devotion is much more important than doing all the decorations, prasadams in a grand way. Somehow in my perspective, honest and deep prayers would give an immense satisfaction to your soul than creating a big hungama during any pooja or vratham day. My dear friends and family, kindly forgive me if my idea conflicts with any of yours.