Kojagari Lakshmi Puja Today: Homes Across the Country Worship the Goddess of Wealth

One of the major religious festivals of the country's Hindu community, Lakshmi Puja, falls today, Sunday. The puja is held on the first full-moon tithi after the Sharodiya Durga Puja ends. This full moon is called Kojagari, which is why the festival is known as Kojagari Lakshmi Puja.

Rubel Chakraborty, assistant sebayet of Jagannath Hall at the University of Dhaka, said that according to the Nabajug Directory Panjika, the full-moon tithi begins today, Sunday, at 11:27:43 in the morning. The tithi will end tomorrow, Monday, at 10:18:48 in the morning, and the Hindu community will celebrate Lakshmi Puja within this period.

According to the scriptures, the goddess Lakshmi is the symbol of wealth and prosperity. She is known as the goddess of progress, light, knowledge, fortune, fertility, generosity, courage and beauty, and for that reason devotees of the Sanatan faith worship Lakshmi as the goddess of affluence.

Devotees believe that on this full-moon tithi the goddess comes to accept worship in order to fill her devotees' lives with wealth and grain. It is from that belief that temples and homes hold special arrangements to worship the goddess on this day every year.

Today, alongside temples, Lakshmi Puja will be held in Hindu households across the country. Arranged within the family, the puja is a traditional religious observance for Bengali Hindu families, in which prayers are offered for wealth, prosperity and the wellbeing of the household.

On the occasion of the puja, mainly women will observe a fast. The custom of fasting through the day and joining the worship in the evening has been passed down through generations in many families.

Alongside the worship, alpana depicting Lakshmi's footprints will be drawn in the courtyards of homes. The alpana is regarded as a symbol of the goddess's arrival, with the footprints drawn from the entrance of the house up to the seat of worship.

Lamps will be lit in the evening. The arrangement of light is linked to the goddess's symbolic association with light and progress; the hope that darkness will recede and light will enter the home lies at the heart of the ritual.

Lakshmi Puja's various religious rites are usually performed in a domestic setting. Alongside larger arrangements in temples, this family-centred celebration is the festival's defining character, with each family preparing the goddess's seat in its own way.

Coming after the grand festival of Durga Puja, this puja arrives in a comparatively calm and familial atmosphere. At the closing end of the Sharodiya festive season, the worship on the Kojagari full moon is therefore an important religious moment of the year for the Hindu community.

According to the almanac, the tithi for the puja lasts until tomorrow, Monday morning. Devotees therefore have the opportunity to complete the puja within the tithi's span, beyond today's daytime and evening observances.

Altogether, today is a day of worshipping the goddess of wealth, light and fortune for the country's Hindu community — Kojagari Lakshmi Puja will be celebrated in temples and in the courtyards of homes, with alpana and the light of lamps.