Lakshmi — also called Shri, an older name that simply means radiance, auspiciousness, glory — is among the most universally beloved deities in the Hindu world, worshipped by Vaishnavas and non-Vaishnavas alike, in palaces and in the smallest village shrine. She is the goddess of aishvarya: not merely money, but the whole spectrum of well-being — prosperity, fertility, beauty, health, fortune, and the grace that makes a life flourish.

Her great myth is the Samudra Manthana, the churning of the ocean of milk. Gods and demons together churned the cosmic sea using a mountain as the churning-rod and the serpent Vasuki as the rope, drawing up treasure after treasure — and from the depths arose Lakshmi, seated upon a lotus, radiant beyond description. Of all who stood at the shore she chose Vishnu, the preserver, as her eternal lord. Wherever Vishnu descends to the world, she descends with him: as Sita beside Rama, as Rukmini beside Krishna. She is the active grace of the Preserver, the sweetness that makes sustaining the world worthwhile.

Her imagery is a quiet theology in itself. She stands or sits upon a fully opened lotus, and holds lotuses in her hands — the lotus that is rooted in mud yet rises immaculate above it, the symbol of purity unstained by the world. Gold flows from her palm. On either side, elephants (gaja) raise their trunks to anoint her, signifying rains, royalty, and the abundance of the fertile earth. This form is honoured as Gaja-Lakshmi, one of her eight classical aspects, the Ashta-Lakshmi, who govern wealth, grain, courage, knowledge, progeny, and more.

Lakshmi is famously called cancala — restless, ever-moving — and the tradition treats this with real wisdom. Fortune is fickle; it comes and goes. So her worship is bound up with the cultivation of the qualities that invite her to stay: cleanliness, diligence, generosity, and order. A neglected, quarrelsome, or miserly house, the proverbs warn, she quietly leaves.

This is why the autumn festival of Diwali belongs to her above all. Homes are scoured spotless, thresholds painted with rangoli, and at dusk on the new-moon night of Lakshmi Puja, rows of diyas are lit so that the goddess, passing in the dark, finds every doorway luminous and welcoming. The lamps are an invitation and a promise at once: light kept burning so that fortune may come home.