वैभवलक्ष्मी व्रत कथा (प्रत्येक शुक्रवार) · Vaibhav Lakshmi Vrat Katha (Every Friday)

The Vaibhav Lakshmi vrat is observed every Friday, and can be kept by anyone — married or unmarried, woman or man — with devotion; it is considered especially fruitful when husband and wife observe it together. The devotee begins with a vow of seven, eleven, twenty-one, thirty-one, fifty-one, or one hundred and one Fridays. One bathes before sunrise, wears white clothes, and sits facing east, mounding rice on a low stool and placing a water-filled copper kalash upon it, with a small bowl on top of the kalash holding a gold or silver ornament, or a silver coin. A ghee lamp and incense are lit, and repeated bows are offered to the Shri Yantra and to all eight forms of the Goddess. Turmeric, kumkum, and rice are offered to the ornament in the bowl, kheer or jaggery-sugar is offered as bhog, aarti is performed, and "Jai Maa Vaibhav Lakshmi" is recited fourteen times. The same ornament or coin is wrapped in red cloth and reused the following Friday. One meal of simple, satvik food is taken that day, or a fast is kept, and at the end, the kalash water is offered to a tulsi plant and rice is scattered for birds.

In Kushinagar lived Harivansh and his wife Damini, a contented and devout couple. Over time, Harivansh fell into bad company — drink, gambling, betting, and vice — and became short-tempered and cruel. The family's entire wealth was lost, and they fell into poverty and social disgrace. Yet Damini remained faithful and devoted, believing this suffering was the fruit of her own karma and would surely pass, and she continued to pray constantly.

One day there came a knock at the door; though there was nothing in the house to offer, Damini's instinct for hospitality stirred, and she opened it. Before her stood a radiant old sadhu — white hair and beard, ochre robes. Sensing he was a true siddha, she reverently seated him on her only, torn mat. The sadhu hinted that she should recognize him, and she then remembered him as the very sadhu who sat in meditation in a hut along the road to the temple, whom she used to bow to. He told her he had come because she had stopped visiting the temple. Damini broke down in tears and told him her whole story of ruin. He consoled her, saying that suffering is the fruit of karma but is temporary, and advised her to begin the Vaibhav Lakshmi vrat. At her eager request, he explained to her the complete method of both the puja and its udyapan.

Damini vowed to keep the vow for twenty-one Fridays beginning that very week, and saw the sadhu off. On the first Friday she rose early, bathed, and prepared for the puja despite her hardship. All her jewelry had been sold away because of her husband's vices, and she could not remove her mangalsutra, so she purified a small anklet she had secretly kept aside in hope of a future child, and offered only leftover sugar as bhog. She gave the first prasad to her husband. That week the household was unusually peaceful; her husband, normally so quick to anger, stayed calm. Over the following twenty Fridays, Harivansh gradually gave up his bad company, returned to honest work, and the household's income slowly began to improve.

On the twenty-first and final Friday, Damini performed the udyapan according to the full method — washing the feet of seven unmarried girls and applying tilak, feeding them and giving dakshina according to her means, and gifting them copies of the Vaibhav Lakshmi Vrat Katha. She distributed kheer as prasad to everyone present, bowed in her heart to all eight forms of the Goddess, and, giving thanks for the restoration of her home, vowed lifelong devotion and to spread the glory of this vow. Saying, "Speak the glory of Maa Vaibhav Lakshmi! May her glory endure forever!" — here the katha concludes.