Diwali puja is a common puja that happens in every household on Diwali or the festival of lights. This year Diwali is being celebrated on 23^rd October 2014.

How To Worship On Diwali?

We hope that this article on checklist for Diwali Puja will help you to ensure that you have a good and complete puja in your house. Diwali puja is done for

• Lord Ganesh
• Goddess Laksmi
• Lord Kuber

All the three deities are worshiped together on this day.

Timings for Diwali Puja 2014

This year the various timings would be as follows

This will help you to ensure that there is prosperity in the house and that you have a great year ahead.

We will now discuss the sixteen steps that are involved in the Diwali puja. This is called Shodashopachara.

The Procedure of Diwali Puja

First take some Ganga jal and sprinkle it around the area where you will be doing the Diwali puja.

Take a nice platform and cover it with a new cloth. The cloth should be red in colour.

Put some grain in the centre of the platform on top of that put a kalash. The kalash should be filled seventy five percent with water.

In the kalash put a supari, a marigold flower, a coin and some grains. On top of the kalash put five mango leaves.

Now place the idol of goddess Lakshmi and Lord Ganesha. Lord Kuber and Lord Ganesh are the same for the purposes of this pooja.

Under the idol of Goddess Laksmi you should place some rice and haldi. If you can draw a lotus with rice then even better. Place a coin in front of the idol. The idol of Lord Ganesha should be on the right of the kalash and Goddess Lakshmi on the left. In between will be the kalash.

Haldi and kumkum should be applied to both the idols. You can also place some rice on both the idols. You can also put books or any items that is related to your business beside the idols.

Now take a thali in that put a diya preferably of ghee. Also place some haldi and kumkum. You must also put some rice. Along with these include sandalwood paste, abeer, saffron paste, silver and a gold coin else you can put a one rupee coin too. You must also have an agarbatti and some flowers on the puja thali.

The coin that you use must be kept in the house and should not be sold. This can be used again for puja next year. Put Tilak on the kalash. Apply flowers to the kalash and to the idol of Lord Ganesha and Goddess Laksmi.

After the aarti is done you must place the thali in front of the idol. Take some flowers and worship Lord Ganesha. He must be the first gold to worship in any puja. You can ask him to come to your house, accept your puja and bless your house.

Take some flowers in your hand and recite the Diwali puja mantra. If you do not know the mantra you can just chant the name of Goddess Laksmi. We will discuss the Diwali puja mantra later in the article. Do this for a few minutes.

Tell Her to accept your puja and to bless your house. Ask Her to ensure that your house has enough wealth and peace. Apply these flowers on the Goddess.

Take some water and wash the feet of the goddess. You must also wash the head of the Goddess. You must take the chandan and apply it on the idol of the Goddess. Now put the garland on the idol.

Place beetle leaves and supari in front of the idol of Goddess Laksmi. The thali that you used for aarti must be taken to all the corners of the house. All those present for the aarti must take the blessings.

Now apply all the items that you have taken in the puja thali as mentioned before and apply on the idol of Lord Ganesha, the kalash and the idol of Goddess Laksmi. Now offer the fruits and the sweets that you have got for the puja and place it in front of the idols. Also place a glass of water.

Ask the Goddess to accept the food.  After a while remove these and distribute as prasad. The whole evening all these items must be kept intact. Next day morning you can remove these and throw all these into a water body close by.

Diwali Pooja Mantras

We will now give the breakup of the Diwali puja mantra that you can use for the puja.

Dhyana mantra:

Dhyana Mantra

This is the avahana mantra that must be said after the first one with hands joined:

Avahana Mantra

Before  you offer the flowers to the Goddess you must say this pushpanjali mantra :

Pushpanjali Mantra

This is the swagat mantra that you must say as you offer the flowers to the goddess:

Shri Lakshmi-Devi! Swagatam।

Padya mantra is said as you wash the feet of the goddess. It is as follows:

Padaya Mantra

You must also chant the arghya mantra. This is done as the head of the goddess is washed with water.

Arghya Mantra

Gandha samarpan mantra. This is said as you offer the sandal wood paste.

Gandha samarpan mantra

As you apply the garland you must say thepushpa samarpan mantra that is:

pushpa samarpan mantra

Now recite the anga pujan mantra that is. You can say this as you do the aarti as the items present in the thali are being offered to the Goddess.

anga pujan mantra

The next is the Ashta Siddhi puja mantra that is said to worship the goddess. As you do the aarti.

Ashta Siddhi puja mantra

Along with the above mantra say the following mantra:

Now say the dhoop samarpan mantra which is as follows. This is said to offer the dhoop to the Goddess Laksmi.

dhoop samarpan mantra

The next mantra is the deep samarpan mantra

deep samarpan mantra

The next is the Naivedya samarpan mantra that is said as food is offered to the goddess. The mantra is as follows:

As we mentioned above that water is offered to the Goddess Lakshmi in this step and you must say the enclosed mantra.

Naivedya samarpan mantra

As you offer the beetle leaves and supari you must say the following mantras.

This is the Dakshina mantra that is said as you give gifts to the goddess laksmi and it is as follows:

Dakshina mantra

Now we will discuss the pradakshina mantra that is as enclosed:

pradakshina mantra

You will now have to chant the vandana sahit pushpanjali and offer flowers again to the Goddess:

vandana sahit pushpanjali

This is the satsang pranam. All present should do pranam to the goddess with this mantra that is as follows:

satsang pranam

The last is the shama parthana that you must do to ask forgiveness from the goddess Laksmi for any mistakes that you have done during the puja.

shama parthana

With this you reach the end of the Diwali puja. Next day you can immerse the idol of Goddess Laksmi. Else keep it so that you can worship the same next year.

We hope that these steps will be able to help you a lot with the Diwali puja this year. Have a very happy and prosperous Diwali.