Lakshmi’s footprints
Small footprints painted at the door and leading into the house, drawn for Lakshmi Puja so that the goddess of wealth walks in and stays.
Meaning
In households that keep Lakshmi Puja, Britannica says, representations of her footprints are painted next to the doorways to invite her in. They are often part of a Rangoli: Britannica lists footprints, especially Lakshmi’s, among the figures rangoli designs take. Chantal Jumel, writing on the mandana floor paintings of Rajasthan, describes footprints for Lakshmi at Diwali on the path to the house, on the doorstep, or inside it leading to the household shrine, sometimes at the centre of a floor painting and sometimes drawn “as if in motion” towards the altar. In Rajasthan they are called paglya and are drawn on the floor inside and outside the house, with the hoof prints of a cow beside them.
Origin and history
Honouring the feet of gurus, gods and elders is an old gesture in India, and Jumel connects the footprints to it. Her example is from the Ramayana: when Rama refused to come back before his fourteen years of exile were over, his brother Bharata took Rama’s sandals back to Ayodhya and set them on the throne to stand for him.
In Bengal the footprints belong to the alpana, the floor drawing Bengali Hindu women make for their vows (bratas). In the alpana for the Lakshmi brata, kept just before a wedding to wish for a prosperous marriage, Alolika De of the MAP Academy describes a border of vines enclosing drawings of bangles, necklaces and earrings, with a pair of feet at the bottom, the footprints of Lakshmi, “who is to descend on this alpana and turn it ‘magical’”. In Bengal and the other eastern states Lakshmi Puja itself is held five days after the end of Durga Puja rather than at Diwali.
How the feet are drawn
In Rajasthan, Jumel found stylised paglya shaped like the letter Z with a curve at the bottom for the heel, and others made of two triangles joined at their points, a small one for the heel and a wider one with five dots for the toes. For Diwali the simple footprint becomes elaborate, worked with geometric and braided patterns like basketry.
Read next
- Next in Diwali symbolsAkash deep (Diwali lantern)A lantern hung high outside the house through the Diwali season. Akash kandil is its Marathi name; the older Sanskrit word, ākāśadīpa, is a lamp raised on a pole at Diwali in honour of Lakshmi or Vishnu.
- The same shape in Buddhist symbolsTriratnaThe symbol of the Three Jewels of Buddhism: the Buddha, the Dharma (his teaching) and the Sangha (the community).
See also
Lakshmi’s lotus and coins, Rangoli, Diya (oil lamp), Toran (door garland), Fireworks, Mithai (sweets).
Sources
- Lakshmi (Encyclopaedia Britannica), Britannica Editors, Encyclopaedia Britannica (Wayback Machine copy, 25 May 2026), Worship
- Rangoli (Encyclopaedia Britannica), Charles Preston, Associate Editor for Religion, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica (Wayback Machine copy, 28 January 2026), Designs and methods; Many lines, many meanings
- Rajasthan mandana, "Adorning the floors and the home for Diwali", part 6, Chantal Jumel, 31 July 2014, Chantal Jumel, Kolam Kalam, Paglya, the divine feet
- Blurred lines: Threshold floor drawings and their mediation between private and public, Alolika De, The MAP Academy; Garland magazine, 1 March 2024, Garland, alpana
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols formed from curves and waves.
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 9, 2026. How we research
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