She is the Hindu Goddess who is probably praised the most, and this is because she takes charge of the wealth, love and prosperity in a Hindu person’s life. And this is not only restricted to the material wealth, but also spiritual wealth and prosperity. With her comes the blessings of fortune and she is also considered as the embodiment of beauty, and is the wife of Lord Vishnu who is one of the consistent Gods of the trilogy of Brahman, Vishnu and Shiva. She is seen as a very beautiful woman with a golden complexion and who also possess four hands, and is depicted or imagined as either sitting or standing on lotus flower which is fully bloomed, and is also seen as holding a bud of the same flower in one of her hands. Lotus stands for beauty, purity and fertility, and so does Goddess Lakshmi. As we said she has four hands and they are the representative of the four major ends in the life of the human, namely: · One for Dharma which in other words means righteousness · The other for Kama which means desire · Then its Artha which stands for wealth, and · The last is Moksha which mean liberation from the life’s cycle, that is liberation from birth and death. The other names of Goddess Lakshmi are Shree or Thirumagal, and this is because as per the Hindu belief she is the Goddess who is endowed with six qualities that are considered to be divine and auspicious, and one more reason is that she is the one who completes Vishnu, or in other words who is the source of strength for Lord Vishnu. The festivals of Diwali the celebration of lights and Kojagiri Purnima are the two festivals that are celebrated in honour of Goddess Lakshmi. If you go by the Hindu ethos, Devi the divine female power who is also called Shakti or Durga, and it is believed that Lakshmi along with Goddess Saraswati are the forms of Tridevi which is the eternal ensemble power of Parabrahman the Trimurti. Hence in other words if we try to understand the stand of Lakshmi we would have to understand the truth that with the help of the supreme soul and in order to create the supreme power who is Adi-Skakti, there were three more shapes that had been created by this supreme power. Goddess Lakshmi is also seen in two forms and they are of Bhudevi and Sridevi who are seen as the occupants of either sides of Lord Venkateswara who is the incarnation of Lord Vishnu. Where on one hand Bhudevi one of the forms of Lakshmi represents the totality of the world, it materiality and its energy, Sridevi represents the world of spirituality and energy. Hence Bhudevi is the representative of Aparam Prakriti and Sridevi represents Prakriti. Though they are seen in two different forms, and are confused as two Goddesses by many, but basically both represent just one Goddess and that is Lakshmi, the other half or the power of Lord Vishnu. Lakshmi is also addressed as Mata, which mean mother, and thus is considered as one of the mother Goddesses of Hindu believers, instead of being addressed only as Devi Lakshmi. She is found in almost every household, and which is why is considered as one of the essential deities of the household. It is also one of the Hindu beliefs that on the full moon night when we worship in the name of Goddess Lakshmi, she herself visits our household and blesses us with love, prosperity, purity, wealth, generosity and is considered to be the embodiment of beauty herself.
Namaste Aum, I am learning more about Shakti and the feminine divine. Right now, I am at a stage where I had committed to splicing my Ancient beliefs (silent understanding of my world, sense of knowing without language from deafness) into Sanātana Dharma (SD) in the last two years, after my initial exposure to SD over ten years ago. I am doing a lot of reading to prepare myself for reading scripture.
