Maa Vilakku for Purattasi Sani
A traditional lamp lit for Lord Balaji (Venkateswara) - Lord of the Seven Hills This lamp is made with homemade rice flour and lit at home for the prosperity and Blessings from the Lord.
Yield: 2 lamps
Equipment
- Spice Blender
- Sieve
- Bowl
Materials
- 1 cup Rice flour - 1 cup Homemade - method below
- 3/4 cup Jaggery
- 1/3 cup Grated coconut
- 1/8 tsp nutmeg grated
- 1/2 tsp Cardamom powder
- 1/16 tsp Edible Camphor pachai karpooram
- 3 TBSP Ghee for binding - Milk is NOT used for binding here
Instructions
- Grate Jaggery finely or pound into very small pieces.
- Mix homemade rice flour, jaggery and coconut well for about 8 - 10 minutes till they finely incorporate into each other. You may need to extend this for 5 more minutes depending on how coarse the rice flour is. Do remember to sieve the rice flour before use.
- Once the jaggery melts with all the kneading, add the ghee, cardamom powder, nutmeg, edible camphor and mix lightly till you get to make a roundel without adding any water. Make a big roundel for distributing as prashad (naivedyam) and a smaller one to light the lamp in
- Make a dent with your thumb on the smaller roundel and place a ghee soaked wick in the dent. Add a tsp of ghee and light the lamp and complete the pooja. Once the lamp dies down, distribute the roundels as bits of prasadam.
Notes
How to make Homemade made Rice flour:
- Wash and soak 3/4 cup raw rice (pacharisi / short grained rice) for 2 hours with 2 cups of water
- Drain the water completely.
- Spread the wet, soaked rice on a thin cotton towel under the fan / mild evening or morning sun for an hour.
- When the rice is still slightly damp (not too much), grind to fine powder.
- Sieve and use in the above recipe