Mithai (sweets)

Sweets made and given at Diwali, shared with family and friends and offered in worship. Jains offer a large laddu, the nirvan laddu, to Mahavira for the anniversary of his liberation.

Diwali symbols. Also called Diwali sweets, ladoo, mithai.

Meaning

Mithai is the Hindi word for sweets: Platts’s dictionary gives it both as “sweetness” and as “a sweetmeat, sweets”. Hindus, Sikhs and Jains all make and give them at Diwali. The Hindu American Foundation says that most families, whatever their regional customs, light diyas and enjoy sweets; on Bandi Chhor Divas, RE:ONLINE’s Sikh entry says, Sikhs prepare a festive langar and give new clothes, presents and sweets; and Jain parents give their children sweets. In Maharashtra the festival food is faral, and on Lakshmi Puja day, Prahaar says, friends and relatives are invited round to share it. The laddu is a ball of chickpea or mung flour with sugar and ghee in Platts’s definition, and Hindi has an idiom for it: to hand out laddus is to celebrate good fortune.

Origin and history

The oldest description of the festival’s gifts names no sweets. Al-Bīrūnī, describing Dibali around 1030, wrote that people bathed, dressed festively and gave each other betel leaves and areca nuts. The BBC wrote in 2010 that the traditional Diwali gifts were sweets and dried fruit, but that the festival had become a time for serious shopping, and with it came the worry that commercialism was eroding the festival’s spiritual side.

The nirvan laddu

On the anniversary of Mahavira’s liberation, Jains across India go to the temple in the morning to offer a nirvan laddu, the Free Press Journal reported from Mumbai in 2024: a large sweet of boondi that can weigh up to 10 kg. The Jain scholar Manish Modi told the paper it is a symbolic offering, because on that day Mahavira was freed from birth for ever. The Marathi daily Prahaar describes the same offering on the new-moon day of Ashvin, when Mahavira’s image is bathed with water and worshipped and the lamps are lit. Diwali is quieter for Jains than for Hindus, RE:ONLINE notes; “the songs, dances and noise of Hindu celebrations are not common amongst the Jain communities.”

Sources

Platts, A Dictionary of Urdu, Classical Hindi, and English (1884): miṭhāʼī, John T. Platts, p. 999, Digital Dictionaries of South Asia, University of Chicago, miṭhāʼī, p. 999
Platts, A Dictionary of Urdu, Classical Hindi, and English (1884): laḍḍū, John T. Platts, p. 955, Digital Dictionaries of South Asia, University of Chicago, laḍḍū, p. 955
HAF's Diwali Resources & Toolkit, Hindu American Foundation, Diwali resource page, Hindu American Foundation, How is Diwali Celebrated?
Diwali (BBC Religions: Hinduism), BBC Religion and Ethics, archived page, last updated 20 October 2010, BBC, Gifts
DIVALI (Bandi Chhor Divas), RE:ONLINE festivals calendar, Sikhi, RE:ONLINE, Culham St Gabriel's, closing paragraph
DIVALI / DEEPAVALI (Jain), RE:ONLINE festivals calendar, Jain, RE:ONLINE, Culham St Gabriel's, entry
Mumbai: Jains Celebrate 'Moksha Kalyanak' And 'Jain New Year' In Honor Of Bhagwan Mahavir's Liberation, FPJ News Service, Free Press Journal, 2 November 2024, Free Press Journal, report
आली माझ्या घरी ही दिवाळी (Lata Guthe, Prahaar, 2024), Lata Guthe, Prahaar (Marathi daily, Mumbai), Kolaj weekly, 2 November 2024, Prahaar, paragraphs on Lakshmi Puja and on the Jain community
Alberuni's India, vol. 2 (Sachau translation, 1888), al-Bīrūnī, written about 1030, translated by Edward C. Sachau; London: Trübner, 1888, vol. 2, chapter LXXVI, p. 182, Internet Archive (University of Toronto copy), chapter LXXVI, p. 182

The same shape elsewhere

Browse symbols formed from circles or diamonds.

Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 9, 2026. How we research

Added October 9, 2026.

Report a problem