Shri Vara Mahalakshmi Vrata Details

• August 5th – Friday – Shri Vara Mahalakshmi Vrata

Shri Vara Mahalakshmi Vrata is performed by married Hindu women to seek the blessings of the Goddess Mahalakshmi, wife of Lord Vishnu.

The Vrata is observed on the Friday immediately preceding the full moon day of the month of
Sravana Masa. On the day of Pooje or Vrata, women clean their homes and decorate their front yards with rangolis. Later, they take a bath and deck wear pure silk saree and jewellery. The lady performing the pooje makes a mandala with the drawing of a lotus upon it. A kalasha filled with rice and topped with fresh mango and betel leaves, a coconut smeared with haldi and kumkum and cloth are placed on the mandala and Lakshmi is invoked therein.

After the worship of the kalasha, follows the worship of Ganesha, then the worship of the sacred thread. Now the main worship of Vara Lakshmi begins and the scared thread is worshipped a second time. It is then tied to the right hand of the lady. After the worship thamboola is given to 5 married ladies.

The same evening, we invite all the neighboring ladies(married women) and offer them tamboola; also called veeledele Adike, which is an offering of betel leaves, fruits, betel nuts, kumkum, haldi and dakshine. At this point the ladies also sing songs in praise of goddess Varalakshmi.

Attached below is a scanned vrata procedure in Kannada:

• varamahalakshmi-vrata

So, here comes the link which has the lyrics for all songs posted on this blog on Goddess Lakshmi.

• Lakshmi Pooje songs

And here comes the link which has colorful and many designs for drawing Rangoli

• Rangoli Designs

And can any festival be complete without authentic dishes? Here are some recipes posted in this blog:

• Authentic Madhwa Dishes. This has recipes for Cucumber Kosambari, Beans Palya, Potato Palya, Lemon Rice, Ambode, Majjige Huli, Nucchina Unde, Gojju, Badam puri etc.

Attached is the post link for the links I have for lyrics, and Shravana Friday Pooje procedure.

• Lakshmi Pooja Vidhana Procedure.
• Shravana Masa Lakshmi Pooja Vidhana

P.S: As always no food is prepared with onion or garlic.