Varlakshmi pooja

Varlakshmi pooja is usually performed by women who have inherited this from their in laws family. Therefore it is a custom carried forward from one generation to another. I did not have this in my mothers house and I did not have a clue how to do this until my first year of marriage.

This pooja is performed by keeping the face of the Goddess made in silver preferably or any other metal and this face is used every year for the pooja. As a new daughter in law, my mother in law got a new face made for me which I am using till date. In the first year there is a small pooja performed before the actual inviting of goddess to hand this over from her to me as well.

There is a long list of things you need for the pooja. When my husband and me were leaving for Muscat for his job, my younger sister in law wrote down the list and with that she also drew how to place the kalasham with the face and this was extremely useful for me when I did this pooja for the first time away from home.

The order of the pooja is :

Bringing the Goddess inside the house to the pooja place

Ganpati pooja

Varlakshmi pooja

Neivedyam (5 or 7 items)

Deeparadhanai

Tying the thread or charadu

Lets look at the list of things you need first :

For the Kalasham :

Banana leaf

A square wooden raised platform (palaha)

Face of the Goddess

Garland for the Goddess

Coconut smeared with turmeric powder

Saree and other jewellery for the Goddess

Kalasham (Shombu )

Mango leaf bunch

Rice to put in the kalasham

Rice to put on the banana leaf

Silver coin

2 betel leaves

2 turmeric

1 supari

vellai & olai (black bangle and pink ring)

1 Lemon

Cotton garland

Flower mala

For the Ganpati Pooja :

Turmeric ganpati (manually made by hand)

Chutta Flowers

Shoeflower

Aruvampulai (grass like flowers which is Ganpati's favourite)

1 neivedyam item

For the pooja :

Betel leaves

Turmeric

Milk

5 variety of fruits (definitely bananas)

5 variety of neivedyam

Panjapathra udharani

One small cup to put the water from the panjapathram

Chandan powder

Kumkum powder

Camphor

Chutta flowers (lotus is a must)

Rice mixed with turmeric powder (akshathai)

Agarbatti

Lamp

Coconut

Flower mala

Yellow threads (charadu) for goddess and for the number of ladies

matchbox

Oil for lamp

I do the pooja with the link provided by Sathya Vadyar. He has created a Whatsapp group and he forwards the link on that group. You can go to Youtube and do the pooja but I feel the youtube ones are very brief and short.

You should not eat anything before the pooja but if you are not able to fast till then, you can have a banana and milk. Once pooja is done you can have all the neivedyam. No onion/garlic to be had on this day

The next day again you should do a small pooja, show 1 neivedyam item (you can even keep fruits), show deevaradhanai and shift the goddess to the left. Then after a while you can remove everything