Sri Lakshmi ( A repost )

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She is one of the most popular goddess in the hindu patheon, and have

been known since pre-Buddhist times. Also known as Shri, is

personified not only as the goddess of fortune and wealth but also as

an embodiment of loveliness, grace and charm. She is worshipped as a

goddess who grants both worldly prosperity as well as liberation from

the cycle of life and death.

 

Lore has it that Lakshmi arose out of the sea of milk, the primordial

cosmic ocean, bearing a red lotus in her hand. Each member of the

divine triad- Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva (creator, preserver and

destroyer respectively)- wanted to have her for himself. Shiva's

claim was refused for he had already claimed the Moon, Brahma had

Saraswati, so Vishnu claimed her and she was born and reborn as his

consort during all of his ten incarnations.

 

Though retained by Vishnu as his consort, Lakshmi remained an avid

devotee of Lord Shiva. An interesting legend surrounds her devotion

to this god:

 

Every day Lakshmi had a thousand flowers plucked by her handmaidens

and she offered them to the idol of Shiva in the evening. One day,

counting the flowers as she offered them, she found that there were

two less than a thousand. It was too late to pluck any more for

evening had come and the lotuses had closed their petals for the

night.

 

Lakshmi thought it inauspicious to offer less than a thousand.

Suddenly she remembered that Vishnu had once described her breasts as

blooming lotuses. She decided to offer them as the two missing

flowers.

 

Lakshmi cut off one breast and placed it with the flowers on the

altar. Before she could cut off the other, Shiva, who was extremely

moved by her devotion, appeared before her and asked her to stop. He

then turned her cut breast into round, sacred Bael fruit (Aegle

marmelos) and sent it to Earth with his blessings, to flourish near

his temples.

 

A few texts say that Lakshmi is the wife of Dharma. She and several

other goddesses, all of whom are personifications of certain

auspicious qualities, are said to have been given to Dharma in

marriage. This association seems primarily to represent a thinly

disguised "wedding" of Dharma (virtuous conduct) with Lakshmi

(prosperity and well-being). The point of the association seems to be

to teach that by performing Dharma one obtains prosperity.

 

Tradition also associates Lakshmi with Kubera, the ugly lord of the

Yakshas. The Yakshas were a race of supernatural creatures who lived

outside the pale of civilization. Their connection with Lakshmi

perhaps springs from the fact that they were notable for a propensity

for collecting, guarding and distributing wealth. Association with

Kubera deepens the aura of mystery and underworld connections that

attaches itself to Lakshmi. Yakshas are also symbolic of fertility.

The Yakshinis (female Yakshas) depicted often in temple sculpture are

full-breasted and big-hipped women with wide generous mouths, leaning

seductively against trees. The identification of Shri, the goddess

who embodies the potent power of growth, with the Yakshas is natural.

She, like them, involves, and reveals herself in the irrepressible

fecundity of plant life, as exemplified in the legend of Shiva and

the Bael fruit narrated above, and also in her association with the

lotus, to be described later.

 

An interesting and fully developed association is between Lakshmi and

the god Indra. Indra is traditionally known as the king of the gods,

the foremost of the gods, and he is typically described as a heavenly

king. It is therefore appropriate for Shri-Lakshmi to be associated

with him as his wife or consort. In these myths she appears as the

embodiment of royal authority, as a being whose presence is essential

for the effective wielding of royal power and the creation of royal

prosperity.

 

Several myths of this genre describe Shri-Lakshmi as leaving one

ruler for another. She is said, for example, to dwell even with a

demon named Bali. The concerned legend makes clear the union between

Lakshmi and victorious kings. According to this legend Bali defeats

Indra. Lakshmi is attracted to Bali's winning ways and bravery and

joins him along with her attendant auspicious virtues. In association

with the propitious goddess, Bali rules the three worlds (earth,

heavens and the nether-worlds) with virtue, and under his rule there

is prosperity all around. Only when the dethroned gods managed to

trick Bali into surrendering does Shri-Lakshmi depart from Bali,

leaving him lusterless and powerless. Along with Lakshmi, the

following qualities depart from Bali: good conduct, virtuous

behavior, truth, activity and strength.

 

Lakshmi's association with so many different male deities and with

the notorious fleetingness of good fortune earned her a reputation

for fickleness and inconstancy. In one text she is said to be so

unsteady that even in a picture she moves and that if she sticks with

Vishnu it is only because she is attracted to his many different

forms (avataras)! She is thus also known as 'Chanchala', or the

restless one.

 

Her notorious fickleness has convinced her devotees that she may

desert them at the slightest pretext. They have thus devised numerous

ingenious strategies to retain Lakshmi, and thus prosperity in their

establishments. One such sect is known to offer only the worst

netlike fabric as vastra (clothing) to Lakshmi; for they say, 'It is

much easier for Goddess Lakshmi to abandon our houses clad in ample

folds of cloth rather than scantily dressed in the minimum fabric we

offer to her as garment'!

 

In a mythological sense her fickleness and adventurous nature slowly

begin to change once she is identified totally with Vishnu, and

finally becomes still. She then becomes the steadfast, obedient and

loyal wife who vows to reunite with her husband in all his next

lives. As the cook at the Jagannatha temple in Puri, she prepares

food for her lord and his devotees. In the famous paintings on the

walls of the Badami caves in central India, she sits on the ground

near where her lord reclines upon a throne, leaning on him; a model

of social decorum and correctitude.

 

Physically Goddess Lakshmi is described as a fair lady, with four

arms, seated on a lotus, dressed in fine garments and precious

jewels. She has a benign countenance, is in her full youth and yet

has a motherly appearance.

 

The most striking feature of the iconography of Lakshmi is her

persistent association with the lotus. The meaning of the lotus in

relation to Shri-Lakshmi refers to purity and spiritual power. Rooted

in the mud but blossoming above the water, completely uncontaminated

by the mud, the lotus represents spiritual perfection and authority.

Furthermore, the lotus seat is a common motif in Hindu and Buddhist

iconography. The gods and goddesses, the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas,

typically sit or stand upon a lotus, which suggests their spiritual

authority. To be seated upon or to be otherwise associated with the

lotus suggests that the being in question: God, Buddha, or human

being-has transcended the limitations of the finite world (the mud of

existence, as it were) and floats freely in a sphere of purity and

spirituality. Shri-Lakshmi thus suggests more than the fertilizing

powers of moist soil and the mysterious powers of growth. She

suggests a perfection or state of refinement that transcends the

material world. She is associated not only with the royal authority

but with also spiritual authority, and she combines royal and

priestly powers in her presence. The lotus, and the goddess Lakshmi

by association, represents the fully developed blossoming of organic

life.

 

No description of Goddess Lakshmi can be complete without a mention

of her traditionally accepted vehicle, the owl. Now, the owl (Ulooka

in Sanskrit), is a bird that sleeps through the day and prowls

through the night. In a humorous vein it is said that owing to its

lethargic and dull nature the Goddess takes it for a ride! She is the

handmaiden of those who know how to control it; how to make best use

of her resources, like the Lord Vishnu. But those who blindly worship

her are verily the owls or 'Ulookas'.

 

 

Adapted from

David Kinsley : Hindu Goddess. Vision of the Divine Feminine in the

Hindu religious Traditions.