Puja Items for a Home Mandir: What You Really Need

A home mandir needs less than the shop lists suggest. Seven plain things are enough to begin: a picture or small murti of the god you pray to, a lamp with oil or ghee and a wick, incense, a small vessel of water with a spoon, flowers with unbroken rice, kumkum with turmeric, and a plate to hold them. Everything else is a pleasure to add over the years, and most of it can wait until you know your own habit.

If you have just set up a shelf, or you are sorting one that has collected things over the years, this is meant to put you at ease: you are probably not missing anything. It tells you what each thing is for, so you can decide for yourself what to buy. It is not a shopping list for a festival, and what to do with these things each morning is a separate guide.

The seven essentials

These are the things almost every home keeps, whatever its tradition. Between them they let you do the small version of any puja: sit, light the lamp, offer water and flowers, say a prayer, wave the flame.

• A picture or murti. The place where your attention rests. A framed picture is a complete start, and many homes keep only pictures.
• A lamp (diya or deepa; deepam in Tamil and Telugu homes, samai in Marathi, prodip in Bengali). Light is the first welcome. A small brass or clay lamp with a cotton wick is enough; ghee or sesame oil are the usual fuels. One wick is fine for every day.
• Incense (agarbatti or dhoop). The offering of fragrance. A holder keeps the ash off the shelf. Bengali homes also burn dhuno, a resin, on a coal.
• A water vessel with a spoon. This is the panchapatra, a small cup or pot, with its small spoon, the achamani. Southern homes say pancha paathram for the cup and uddharani for the spoon; Marathi homes say tambya for the pot and pali for the spoon. The water is for sipping three times before you begin (achamanam in the South) and for sprinkling a little around the place. It is the item people most often leave out and then miss.
• Flowers and akshata. Fresh flowers if you can get them, and akshata, meaning whole unbroken rice grains, which stand in for anything you do not have.
• Kumkum and haldi (turmeric). Applied to the deity as a small mark, and by you as a tilak. Chandan, sandalwood paste, is added by those who like it.
• A plate (thali; tamhan in Marathi). To hold the things above and to carry the lamp for the aarti. A small piece of camphor and the matchbox can sit beside it.

The picture or murti: which, and how big

Start with a picture if you are unsure. A picture asks nothing of you beyond keeping it clean, and you can change to a murti later. If you want a murti, keep it small. A rule of thumb popular in North India is not more than about 22 cm tall (nearly nine inches). It is a habit rather than a rule from a text, and the reason usually given is that a big murti is made for a temple, where trained priests care for it. For the days of Saraswati Puja or Ganesh Chaturthi a bigger one is brought home for a few days and then immersed; that is another matter.

Whether a home murti is "consecrated" differs from house to house. Some homes treat theirs as a living presence once it has been invited with mantras and worship it every day; others keep it as an image. Ask the elders of your home, or a purohit, which your tradition does. Neither is a wrong place to start.

Some homes keep one picture or murti of each deity, and others keep a small and a big one together. This is a household custom, not a rule we found in a text, so keep to what your own home does. Smarta homes often keep five deities together (panchayatana puja): Ganesha, Shiva, Devi, Vishnu and Surya, with the chosen deity at the centre. Vaishnava homes centre on Vishnu, Krishna or Rama, often with a tulsi plant in the house. Saiva homes keep vibhuti, the sacred ash, beside a Shiva picture or linga.

If a murti or picture breaks. Most homes do not keep a broken one on the shelf. Practice differs: some homes give it to clean water, a river or the sea, with a prayer, and others bury it in the earth. A purohit will tell you what your tradition does and, where a metal murti is only dented, whether it can stay. A silver, brass or marble murti that is whole is not immersed; many homes keep it for good.

The lamp, and its wicks and oil

Use a cotton wick, which you can buy as a ready pack, or roll from clean cotton. Ghee in a brass or clay lamp is the usual choice for the shelf; sesame oil is the other common one. ISKCON guides say to use only ghee that has not been cooked with. An akhand deepa, a lamp meant to burn for many hours, is a thing for festival days or a vow, not something you need to begin.

Gaudiya Vaishnava (ISKCON) guides use a lamp with an odd number of wicks, at least five, for a full arati. Most homes light one wick for the daily lamp and keep the larger lamp for festivals. Keep the lamp away from cloth and paper, on a plate or a small stand that catches the oil.

Water vessels: panchapatra, lota and kalash

A small copper or brass lota or panchapatra, with its spoon, covers every need for water. Copper and brass are what people usually buy, but no material is required. A kalash (kalasam in Tamil and Telugu homes, ghot in Bengali ones), the pot crowned with mango leaves and a coconut, is for festivals and ceremonies, not the daily shelf, and many homes only bring one out on those days. Gangajal, water from the Ganga, is a small bottle kept for sprinkling and purifying; ordinary clean water does everything else.

Bell, conch and the rest of the shelf

• Bell (ghanta or ghanti; ghonta in Bengali, mani in Tamil, gante in Kannada, ganta in Telugu). Rung while offering the lamp and the aarti. ISKCON guides keep it on its own small plate when it is not in use.
• Conch (shankh). Blown before a worship begins in many homes (Bengali homes blow it at dusk), or used to hold water for offering. Keep it clean and dry.
• Camphor (kapoor; karpooram in Tamil, karpuram in Telugu). For the aarti flame (arathi in the South, harathi in Telugu homes), a tablet on the plate.
• Mauli or kalava, the red thread. For tying round a kalash or a wrist, mostly at festivals.
• A seat (asan). A small mat or cloth for you to sit on.
• A small bowl or plate for the food offering. Some homes keep one separate plate only for this.
• Yantra, toran, rangoli colours. Beautiful and optional. A yantra under the murti, or a mantra to invite it to its seat if you have none, is how some homes begin.

What can wait, and what to skip

Can wait: panchamrit ingredients (milk, curd, ghee, honey and sugar), havan items, brass cleaning powder, aarti books, a toran, a conch stand. Buy them the week you use them, and you will not have paid for things that sit in a cupboard.

Worth skipping: a ready kit of thirty or forty small things when you have a shelf for seven. Kits are made for a festival puja, and the shelf only needs what you use every day. If you do buy one, tick its list against the seven above and keep the rest in a box for the festival. Also skip large murtis for the shelf. A crowded mandir is harder to keep clean, and it is easy to miss that a flower or a wick has gone stale.

Ask your elders or a purohit before adding anything that belongs to your own tradition. The words and the things change from one household to the next, and this is a common place for local custom to show.

Setting it out

• A clean place away from food. Away from where people eat, from pets and from the busiest part of the house if you can. A shelf, a cabinet, a corner of a table all do.
• A cloth under the murti. New or freshly washed. Many North Indian homes also set the murti on a small wooden stool, a chowki. A washable shelf can go without.
• Facing. Most guides want you to face east or north while you pray. In a flat that is not always possible; what the old texts say about the pooja room is calmer than most advice, in our guide to the puja room.
• Height. Low if you pray seated, higher if there are small children at home.
• Wash your hands first. Many homes bathe and put on clean clothes before handling the murti.

Looking after it

Brass can be wiped with a lemon slice or a little tamarind pulp, rinsed in warm water and dried well. Copper responds to salt on a lemon. Silver can be cleaned with a little vibhuti, the sacred ash. Wipe the shelf when you change the flowers, and do not leave dry flowers piled in a corner.

Used flowers and leaves, called nirmalya, are not thrown in a dustbin in many homes. Bury them in a pot of soil or a garden, or compost them; city temples and municipalities in some places collect them. Many people prefer not to put them in a river, because the water suffers.

How different homes keep it

The seven essentials are the common core. Over them each tradition lays its own. A Tamil home often lights a brass kuthuvilakku (the Kannada word is deepada kamba) and keeps kumkum and turmeric within reach. A Bengali home has the thakur ghar, with a bell (ghonta), a shankh and the kosha-kushi water set, and often a Narayan shila. A Maharashtrian home calls the shelf the devghar. We write about the South Indian shelf and the Bengali thakur ghar in their own guides; the one thing to take from them is that the seven items stay the same, and the names and the extras change.

The same things by other names

If an elder asks you for something by a word you do not know, it is probably one of these.

• North Indian (Hindi): diya, agarbatti, ghanti, roli or kumkum, haldi, akshat, chandan, kapoor, asan, chowki.
• Marathi: samai, ghanta, haldi-kunku, akshata, gandh, kapoor, tamhan for the plate, tambya and pali for the pot and spoon.
• Gujarati: diyo, ghanti, kanku for kumkum, chokha for the rice, chandan, kapoor.
• Bengali: prodip, ghonta, shankh, dhuno, kosha-kushi for the water set, chandan and sindur, asan.
• Tamil: vilakku, mani, manjal, kumkumam, akshathai, chandanam, karpooram, pancha paathram and uddharani, kalasam.
• Kannada: deepa, gante, arishina, kumkuma, akshate, gandha, karpoora, pancha pathre.
• Telugu: deepam, ganta, pasupu, kumkuma, akshatalu, gandhamu, karpuram, panchapatra, harathi and harathi pallem for the aarti plate.

Frequently asked questions

What is the minimum I need for a home mandir?

A picture or small murti, a lamp with a wick and ghee or oil, incense, a vessel of water with a spoon, flowers, akshata and kumkum, and a plate. Camphor and a matchbox are small extras that complete it.

Do I need a murti, or is a picture enough?

A picture is enough. Many homes keep only pictures. A murti is a choice you can make later, and you should ask the elders of your home whether they treat it as invited with mantras and worshipped daily.

How big should a home murti be?

Small. A popular rule of thumb in North India is no taller than about 22 cm, though we could not trace it to a text. Big murtis are made for temples, and bigger ones brought home for a festival are immersed afterwards.

Which lamp oil should I use?

Ghee is the usual choice for the shelf and sesame oil is the other common one. Use a cotton wick. Keep the lamp on a plate, away from cloth and paper.

What do I do with a broken murti?

Most homes do not keep one on the shelf. Some give it to clean water with a prayer and others bury it in the earth. Ask a purohit what your tradition does; many homes keep a whole silver, brass or marble murti for good.

How do I dispose of old flowers and offerings?

Bury them in soil, compost them, or use a temple or civic collection point. Many homes avoid the dustbin and the river.

Is it all right to keep puja items in the kitchen or bedroom?

The usual advice is a clean place away from where food is eaten and away from pets. Where space is small, a closed shelf or cabinet works; the old texts on this are in our puja room guide.

Do I need a purohit to set up a home mandir?

No. You can set it up yourself and begin with a lamp, water and a flower. People often ask a purohit for the first puja in a new home, or when a murti is to be invited with mantras; see the griha pravesh guide. If you would like one, tell us what puja you need and purohits will reach out on call or WhatsApp.

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