Lakshmi Mantra

Salutations to Mahalakshmi

ॐ श्रीं महालक्ष्म्यै नमः

Oṃ śrīṃ mahālakṣmyai namaḥ

A seed mantra of Lakṣmī, counted through the days of Diwali and above all on the new-moon night kept as Lakṣmī Pūjā. What she is asked for is translated as prosperity, and the older sense of that word is not money but abundance of every kind: the well-being of a house and of the people in it.

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Practice

Recitations per round 27 54 108

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ॐ श्रीं महालक्ष्म्यै नमः

Oṃ śrīṃ mahālakṣmyai namaḥ

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Lakshmi Mantra in Devanagari script with romanisation — The words of Lakshmi Mantra, to save or share.

What the words say

Śrīṃ is a bīja: a seed syllable with no lexical meaning, though it is formed on śrī, which means splendour and prosperity and is itself one of Lakṣmī’s names. Mahālakṣmyai is the dative of Mahālakṣmī: ‘to the great Lakṣmī’. Namaḥ is homage. As with other bīja mantras the working part is the syllable rather than the sentence.

Where it comes from

Lakṣmī is addressed in the Śrī Sūkta, a hymn appended to the Ṛgveda; the bīja form here belongs to the later Tantric mantra tradition rather than to that hymn. Seed syllables and endings differ between lineages and between household and temple practice, and this is one common form.

How it is practised

Counted on a mala through the five days, with the new-moon night as its centre. Diwali is a household observance with a great deal more to it than a count, and this app does not attempt to reproduce the rest of it.

References

Śrī Sūkta (Ṛgveda khila) as the Vedic hymn to Śrī-Lakṣmī; Tantric bīja-mantra tradition

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