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Friday, July 11, 2025

The story of Mother Lakshmi

by

257 days ago
20241027

Re­porter

am­bi­ka.ja­gas­sars­ingh

@guardian.co.tt

Moth­er Lak­sh­mi is one of the three main de­vis in Hin­duism, revered as the God­dess of wealth, pros­per­i­ty and good for­tune.

Ac­cord­ing to Pun­dit Sunesh To­ta-Ma­haraj, “the ori­gin of Moth­er Lak­sh­mi, De­vi Lak­sh­mi, or God­dess Lak­sh­mi, is found par­tic­u­lar­ly in two scrip­tures of Hin­dus. Pri­mar­i­ly, we look at the Vish­nu Pu­rana and the Ma­hab­harat, where her ori­gin is de­tailed, and the sto­ry is told there.”

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia at the Lak­sh­mi Narayan Bhak­ti Mandir, Pun­dit Sunesh To­ta-Ma­haraj said in ac­cor­dance with the Pu­ranas, which are di­vine Hin­du scrip­tures, it is be­lieved that God­dess Lak­sh­mi was born as the re­sult of a clash be­tween the gods and the asur­as (demons) dur­ing the Samu­dra Man­than, or what is known as the churn­ing of the ocean.

“Many years ago, the asur­as and the devas, which were the demons and the gods, they were search­ing for Am­rit, which is a nec­tar of im­mor­tal­i­ty, which they be­lieve if they con­sumed would give them eter­nal life.”

He said af­ter years of search­ing for this nec­tar with no luck, the gods sought Lord Vish­nu, of­ten re­ferred to as the Supreme Lord, for a help­ing hand.

“He gave them the ad­vice that the Am­rit, the nec­tar which they were seek­ing, will be found in the Kshi­ra Sagara, which is the Cos­mic Ocean. He said to them that in or­der to get the nec­tar from this ocean, they would have to churn the ocean. How­ev­er, they would have to co­op­er­ate and work with the asur­as, with the demons, some­thing which was un­heard of.”

Work­ing to­geth­er was un­heard of since the gods and demons were al­ways at war with each oth­er, be­ing on op­pos­ing sides.

But, with Lord Vish­nu’s ad­vice, the gods sought the help of the demons. To­geth­er, they joined forces to churn the ocean, Pun­dit Sunesh To­ta-Ma­haraj not­ed.

“And so they took a moun­tain known as the Man­dara Moun­tain, they placed it in the mid­dle of the ocean, and then, of course, they would need some­thing to turn and so they en­list­ed the help of a very di­vine ser­pent known as Va­su­ki, a very long snake. And so, the snake curled it­self around the moun­tain, the head on one end, the tail on the oth­er. The devas, the gods, they held on to one end. The asur­as, they held on to the oth­er, and they start­ed to pull to and fro.”

Thus be­gan the tug-of-war be­tween the gods and the demons, to ob­tain this Am­rit, since the demons al­so sought the op­por­tu­ni­ty to be­come im­mor­tal.

Many items, good and bad, em­anat­ed from the churn­ing, in­clud­ing the Di­vine God­dess.

“One of the last to emerge was De­vi Lak­sh­mi, the god­dess her­self. And as she emerged, when all looked at her, the asur­as, the demons, the devas, the gods, even the sages, the wise ones look­ing at her, they were over­whelmed with her ra­di­ance and her beau­ty, her coun­te­nance, it was so di­vine and so re­splen­dent that they im­me­di­ate­ly recog­nised that she was rare, that she was one of a kind,” Pun­dit Sunesh To­ta-Ma­haraj re­vealed.

When the god­dess ap­peared, she was on a lo­tus in full bloom and in her hands were lo­tus flow­ers, a sym­bol of pu­ri­ty and re­birth, which is what Lak­sh­mi rep­re­sents.

Up­on her emer­gence, she se­lect­ed Lord Vish­nu as her con­sort. Since then, her ap­pear­ance co­in­cides with the third day of the five-day cel­e­bra­tion of Di­vali, due to what she em­bod­ies.

“She rep­re­sents pros­per­i­ty, wealth. She rep­re­sents light. She rep­re­sents hope. And Di­vali, of course, is that Di­vali brings a sense of hap­pi­ness. It brings a sense of joy. It brings a sense of ca­ma­raderie, to­geth­er­ness, fam­i­lies, com­mu­ni­ties ... And so, be­cause she was able to bring to­geth­er these asur­as, the demons and the devas, the gods, to work to­geth­er.”

Thus, De­vi Lak­sh­mi is wor­shipped, as she be­stows good for­tune and pros­per­i­ty on her wor­ship­pers.

To­ta-Ma­haraj added that through the retelling of the epics in the Pu­ranas, there is al­ways a les­son to be learnt.

He said, “I think that Lord Vish­nu giv­ing this in­struc­tion, he want­ed to show that the Devas, the Gods, he want­ed to show the Asur­as, the demons and even us as hu­mans, that de­spite our dif­fer­ences and de­spite maybe what we be­lieve in, where we have come from; our lifestyle, that in or­der for us to achieve and to ob­tain pros­per­i­ty and for­tune, which is what De­vi Lak­sh­mi rep­re­sents, to ob­tain guid­ance and a brighter fu­ture, col­lab­o­ra­tion and co­op­er­a­tion is nec­es­sary.”

He said giv­en the cur­rent state of the world, work­ing to­geth­er is ab­solute­ly nec­es­sary.

“I think that ad­vice for them to work to­geth­er was to teach them and to teach the world of this ne­ces­si­ty, this need to col­lab­o­rate, to co­op­er­ate, team­work and I think if we look across our coun­try and across the world, we will agree that those qual­i­ties of col­lab­o­ra­tion and team­work are need­ed now more than ever,” Pun­dit Sunesh To­ta-Ma­haraj con­clud­ed.


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