Diwali 2026: From royal paintings to prayer rooms, how Raja Ravi Varma brought Goddess Lakshmi into millions of Indian homes

Every Diwali, Goddess Lakshmi occupies a special place in Indian homes. Her image is carefully placed in prayer rooms, worshipped alongside Lord Ganesha and associated with hopes of prosperity, abundance and good fortune. Yet her presence extends far beyond the festival. She appears on shop calendars, commercial packaging, matchboxes and countless household objects, making her one of the most recognisable figures in India's religious and visual culture.

But how did an image once largely associated with temples, traditional paintings and wealthy patrons become so widely accessible?

The answer lies partly in the extraordinary legacy of Raja Ravi Varma, the 19th-century artist whose paintings and pioneering printing press transformed the way Indians encountered their gods and goddesses.

As per a report in The Indian Express, the journey of Goddess Lakshmi from sacred artwork to mass-produced imagery reflects a fascinating intersection of religion, technology, commerce and popular culture.

Before the printing press: The goddess of wealth and abundance

Lakshmi's association with prosperity stretches back centuries, long before the emergence of modern religious prints.

In the Vedas, the term Sri represented splendour, glory, majesty and auspiciousness. Over time, these qualities came to be personified as Goddess Lakshmi.

In his book Invoking Lakshmi: The Goddess of Wealth in Song and Ceremony (2010), author Constantine Rhodes explains that the goddess represents both material and spiritual abundance.

“India’s majestic confluence of material and spiritual prosperity reflects the nature of this goddess who embodies the rich and diverse ways of experiencing one’s walk through this world,” Rhodes writes.

He notes that devotees describe Lakshmi as bhukti mukti pradāyini, or the bestower of material enjoyment and spiritual liberation.

This understanding helps explain why Lakshmi occupies such a central place in Indian households. She represents not merely the accumulation of money, but a broader idea of prosperity and fulfilment.

How a printing press changed religious art forever

Towards the end of the 19th century, Raja Ravi Varma established the Ravi Varma Fine Arts Lithographic Press, setting in motion a major transformation in India's religious visual culture.

Until then, elaborate paintings of Hindu gods and goddesses were often associated with temples, wealthy patrons and private collections. The emergence of mass-produced prints made such images available to a much wider audience.

Ravi Varma's press operated two high-speed, steam-powered lithographic machines imported from Germany. These machines were capable of producing between 500 and 800 impressions an hour.

For the period, this represented a significant technological advance.

Using chromolithography, the press could reproduce colourful paintings in large numbers, allowing religious images to circulate far beyond the original artwork.

A painting that might previously have been viewed by a relatively limited audience could now be reproduced, purchased and displayed in homes across different social classes.

The development helped change not only who could access religious art, but also how devotional images became part of everyday domestic life.

Was Goddess Lakshmi the very first image printed?

An intriguing detail in the history of Ravi Varma's press concerns its earliest publication.

Anthropologist and historian Christopher Pinney, in Photos of Gods: The Printed Image and Political Struggle in India (2004), discusses the uncertainty surrounding the first image produced by the press.

One possibility is The Birth of Shakuntala, although its chromolithograph carries serial number 13.

Another, potentially stronger contender is an image of Goddess Lakshmi, consistently marked with serial number 001.

While the precise order of publication remains uncertain, the possibility that Lakshmi was among the press's earliest images is significant.

The goddess who symbolised wealth and auspiciousness would eventually become one of the most familiar figures in India's commercially reproduced religious imagery.

Why Ravi Varma's gods looked different

Ravi Varma's influence was not limited to printing technology. His artistic approach also marked a major shift in the visual representation of Hindu deities.

Drawing on European traditions of realism, he depicted mythological figures with recognisably human features, natural expressions, carefully arranged clothing and realistic surroundings.

These images differed from earlier artistic traditions that often relied more heavily on symbolic forms and otherworldly representations.

The effect was to make divine figures appear more immediate and relatable to viewers.

As Pinney writes, “Perspective and the convention of realism did not render the gods absurd or archaic: they made them more present.”

For devotees, the paintings offered a way of encountering familiar religious figures through a new visual language.

When these images were reproduced through chromolithography, their reach expanded dramatically.

From household shrines to soap wrappers and matchboxes

The spread of religious prints also created an unexpected connection between sacred imagery and commercial advertising.

By the early 20th century, pictures of Hindu deities had begun appearing on product labels, advertisements and consumer goods.

By the middle of the century, calendars, matchboxes, soap wrappers and textile labels routinely carried such images.

One example was a calendar advertising the luxury soap brand Vinolia, which featured Ravi Varma's depiction of Goddess Lakshmi.

In later decades, firecracker packaging became another prominent medium for religious imagery.

This development reflected how images originally created for devotional purposes had become embedded in India's commercial and everyday visual culture.

Lakshmi was no longer visible only in a prayer room or temple. Her image could also be encountered in shops, marketplaces and on ordinary household products.

Why Lakshmi looks different in North and South India

Even as mass printing made religious imagery widely available, regional preferences continued to shape how the goddess was depicted.

In Gods in the Bazaar: The Economies of Indian Calendar Art (2007), academic Kajri Jain describes a conversation with a picture publisher in Sivakasi, Tamil Nadu, who explained that southern consumers preferred seated images of Lakshmi, while northern consumers favoured standing depictions.

These differences reflected regional aesthetic and devotional preferences rather than a single uniform representation of the goddess.

Jain also records a belief that the deity must recognise herself in an image before inhabiting it.

“For if she cannot recognise herself as represented in the image she will refuse to inhabit it,” she writes.

This offers an insight into why the appearance of religious images matters to devotees.

Such pictures are not necessarily viewed as mere decoration. They can be understood as a means of inviting the divine presence into a household or workplace.

A legacy that continues every Diwali

More than a century after Ravi Varma established his printing press, the visual culture he helped popularise remains deeply embedded in Indian life.

The familiar image of Goddess Lakshmi in homes, shops and festive calendars is part of a much larger history of religious devotion, artistic innovation and mass production.

His contribution was not simply to make paintings available in greater numbers. By combining realistic artistic representations with industrial printing technology, Ravi Varma helped change the relationship between ordinary households and sacred imagery.

And every Diwali, when families place Lakshmi's image in their prayer rooms and invoke blessings of prosperity, that legacy continues — connecting a centuries-old religious tradition with a revolution in Indian art and printing.