Once Bhagwan Vishnu was setting out to walk the earth, and Lakshmi Maa asked to come with Him. Vishnu ji said She might come on one condition: She must do as He told Her, and She must not look towards the south. Lakshmi Maa agreed, and the two came down to the earth together.
After a while Vishnu ji said, 'Wait here until I come back. I am going towards the south; do not look that way.' When He had gone, Lakshmi Maa wondered what there could be in the south that She was forbidden to see, and She could not hold back. She followed. A little way on lay a field of mustard in full yellow flower. She was so taken with it that She picked the flowers and adorned Herself with them. Further on stood a field of sugarcane; She broke four canes and drank their juice.
Just then Vishnu ji returned and saw Her. 'I told you not to come this way,' He said, 'and you did not listen. You have taken what belongs to the farmer. Now serve that farmer for twelve years.' And He left Her there. So Lakshmi Maa went to live in the farmer's house. He was very poor. She said to the farmer's wife, 'Bathe, and before you cook, do the puja of this figure of Lakshmi that I have made; whatever you ask will be given.' The woman did as She was told, and from the very next day the farmer's house began to fill with grain, wealth and gold. The twelve years passed in great happiness.
When the twelve years were over, Vishnu ji came in the guise of an ordinary man to take Lakshmi Maa back. The farmer would not let Her go. Vishnu ji told him, 'She is chanchala; She stays nowhere for long, and even the greatest have not been able to keep Her. She served you these twelve years because of My word, and that time is complete.' Still the farmer held on to Her and would not give Her up.
Then Lakshmi Maa showed the farmer who She was, and said, 'I cannot stay on the earth. But if you wish to keep me, do as I say. Tomorrow is Teras. Clean your house and plaster it fresh. At night keep a diya of ghee burning, do my puja in the evening, and set a copper kalash filled with coins for me. I will live in that kalash, though you will not see me at the puja. Do my puja this way on this day and I will not leave your house all year. If you want to keep me, do it every year.' Saying this, She spread out in all ten directions with the light of the diyas.
The next day the farmer did Lakshmi Maa's puja just as She had said, and his house stayed full of grain and wealth. Every year after that he did Her puja on Teras. Those who came to know of it began to do the same, doing the puja of Lakshmi Maa, with Kuber ji, on the evening of the Krishna Trayodashi before Diwali.
This is why the diya is also set at the door on this evening. Once Yamraj asked his messengers whether they ever felt pity when they took a life. At first they said no, they only did as they were told. When he asked again, they told him of the one time their hearts had trembled. A king named Hema had a son, and when the astrologers read the boy's stars they said he would die four days after his marriage. So the king sent his son to a place where not even the shadow of a woman would fall on him.
But what is written does not move. In that very place the prince married a princess at a good hour, and four days after the wedding the messengers came for him. The young bride wept so bitterly that, they said, their own tears would not stop as they took him; they had never seen so fine a pair. Then they asked Yamraj, 'Maharaj, is there no way to be spared an untimely death?'
Yamraj said, 'Whoever, on the Trayodashi of the dark half of Kartik, lights a diya in my name facing the south will be free of the fear of an untimely death.' Since then, on the evening of Dhanteras, a diya is lit for Yamraj and set at the door of the house with its flame to the south, so that no one in the family goes before their time.
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