Walk past a Hindu temple at dusk and you will hear it before you see it: a bell, a drum, voices rising together, and through the door a priest moving a tray of flames in slow circles before the deity. Walk into a Hindu home at the same hour and you may find the same thing on a smaller scale, a single lamp, a mother singing, a child ringing a bell slightly out of time. This is aarti, and for many Hindus it is the most familiar act of worship they know.
It is also one of the least explained. We learn it by doing it, standing beside our elders, long before anyone tells us what the circles mean or why we hold our palms over the flame afterwards. This article tries to fill in what the elders assumed we would work out.
What the word means, and why the circle
Aarti (also written arati or arti) comes from the Sanskrit aratrika, the term used in older ritual texts for the waving of a lamp before an image. A popular explanation, repeated in many homes, breaks the word into a and ratri, "that which takes away the night", and whether or not it is the true etymology it captures what the act feels like. In South India the same ceremony is called deeparadhana, "worship with the lamp", and the older Sanskrit name nirajana is still used in some temple manuals.
Aarti is normally the climax of a puja. The offerings of water, flowers, incense and food have been made; now the lamp is lifted and the whole gathering joins in.
The lamp is moved clockwise, which in Hindu practice is the direction of auspiciousness; it is the same direction in which we walk around a temple. The flame rises and falls in front of the image, and in doing so it does several things at once.
First, it lights the deity. In the days before electricity the sanctum was dark, and the slow circles of the lamp were literally how the worshippers saw the face, the ornaments and the feet of the murti. The lamp was a way of looking.
Second, it offers the light itself. Fire is one of the five elements, and in aarti the devotee holds up the element of light as a gift, just as earlier in the puja water and flowers were offered.
Third, the circle traces the form of the deity. Many traditions teach that the lamp should be moved a few times before the feet, then before the navel, then before the face, and finally in large circles around the whole figure. The exact number of circles varies from temple to temple and family to family, and no one should feel anxious about it. The idea is that the whole of the divine form is honoured, from the ground up.
The lamp, camphor and ghee
In temples and at festivals the aarti lamp often has five wicks, the panchaarti. The five flames are commonly linked to the five elements (earth, water, fire, air and space) or to the five vital breaths, so that in offering five lights one offers the whole of creation and the whole of oneself.
Two fuels are common. A ghee lamp burns with a steady, warm flame and is the traditional choice for the main lamp of a puja; ghee from the cow is held to be especially pure. Camphor (karpura) is used for a separate, short aarti, often at the very end. Camphor is loved for a particular reason: it burns away completely, leaving no residue. Elders explain that the ego should burn like camphor before God, leaving nothing behind. A camphor flame is also bright, fragrant and brief, and the moment it dies the aarti is over.
Many families keep both: a ghee diya that stays lit through the puja and a small camphor tablet on a brass plate for the final waving.
Om Jai Jagdish Hare and other household aartis
Across North India and the diaspora, one aarti is sung more than any other. Om Jai Jagdish Hare ("Victory to the Lord of the Universe") was composed in Hindi in the 1870s by Pandit Shraddharam Sharma of Phillaur in Punjab, a scholar and novelist. It is addressed to Vishnu as Jagdish, the Lord of the World, but it has become the household aarti for almost every deity, sung after a Lakshmi puja on Diwali, before Ganesha at a wedding, and in temples of every lineage.
Its verses ask the Lord, who removes the troubles of his devotees in a moment, to accept the worship of one who is foolish and full of faults. A child can learn it in an evening, and most do.
Other regions have their own. In Maharashtra, Sukhakarta Dukhaharta is sung for Ganesha; Gujarati homes sing Jai Adhya Shakti for the Goddess; in the South, aarti is usually accompanied by Sanskrit or Tamil verses rather than a Hindi hymn. Each family carries its own small repertoire.
Receiving the flame
When the lamp is brought round after the aarti, each person holds both palms briefly over the flame and then touches them to their eyes and the crown of the head.
The traditional understanding is this: the light has just been offered to the deity and has, so to speak, come back from the deity. It now carries blessing. By taking that warmth to the eyes we ask that our seeing be purified; by taking it to the head we ask that our thoughts be. It is a way of receiving the deity's grace in physical form, much like taking prasad. A small coin is often placed on the aarti plate at this point, not as payment but as a token of offering something back.
Aarti through the temple day, and the family at dusk
In a temple the deity is treated as a royal guest in residence, and aarti marks the stages of the day. The names and number vary by tradition, but a common pattern is:
- Mangala aarti, before dawn, when the deity is woken.
- Shringar aarti, after the deity has been bathed and dressed in the morning's ornaments.
- Sandhya aarti, at dusk, usually the best attended of the day.
- Shayan aarti, at night, when the deity is put to rest and the doors are closed.
Some temples add a midday rajbhog aarti after the main food offering, and some Vaishnava lineages keep still more. If you are visiting a temple for the first time, the evening sandhya aarti is the one to aim for.
Perhaps the most important thing about aarti, though, has nothing to do with lamps. It is the time of day when everyone stops. The food is left for a moment, the homework is put aside, the eldest and the youngest stand in the same small space and sing the same words. Grandparents who can no longer manage a long puja can still hold the bell. Children who cannot sit through a reading can clap along.
Rituals survive when they bring people together, and aarti has survived because it does. Whatever else your family manages, these five minutes at dusk are worth protecting.
A simple way to begin
If your home has no evening aarti, start with one lamp and one hymn. Light a ghee or oil diya at sunset, ring a bell if you have one, and sing Om Jai Jagdish Hare or whichever aarti your family remembers, moving the lamp in slow clockwise circles before your deity. Pass the lamp round, cup your hands over the flame, touch your eyes. Do it imperfectly if you must, but do it again tomorrow.