Charan Padukas

Paduka is the everyday word for a sandal, charan is the feet, and a charan paduka is the deity's feet sculpted and honoured as the object of worship instead of a likeness of the deity. That sounds like a substitute for a murti and it is not one. It is a form of worship with a long lineage of its own. Bharata set Rama's padukas on the throne at Ayodhya and governed in their name for fourteen years, which is the story most people half remember. Pilgrims at Gaya take darshan of the Vishnupad, the footprint of Vishnu in stone. A teacher's lineage passes through his padukas, which is what the Guru Paduka Stotram is addressed to. In each case the feet are enough on their own, because the feet are the part a devotee actually touches.

That is the practical difference too. A murti is looked at from a respectful distance and kept where it will not be knocked. A paduka is low, flat and meant to be touched, and for a good number of households that is the thing that decides it.

Two different objects share the name

Search for charan paduka and roughly half of what comes back is wooden khadau: the toe knob sandals worn by ascetics, kept for a guru and sold in wearable sizes for men. The rest is what is on this page, the sculpted footprints, cast small and finished in metal, meant to sit at an entrance or in the mandir. Both are correctly called padukas and the two get confused constantly. If it is wooden khadau you want, for guru pooja on Guru Purnima or a tiny pair for a Laddu Gopal, we do not make them, and you will be better served elsewhere.

Whose feet we make, and it is a short list

Maa Lakshmi's is the one most households come for, since footprints at the door read as prosperity walking in. Hers is the larger piece at around three inches, gold and silver plated. Balaji's charan carries the shankha, the chakra and the namam, which is the Tirumala form, and it is the smaller piece at around two inches in gold plate. Those two are what we keep, and it is worth being straight that this is a narrow range rather than a hall of deities.

Krishna's lotus feet, the charan chinh at the centre of Vaishnava and particularly Pushtimarg seva, is the form asked for most often after Lakshmi's. It is listed here and currently out of stock, which is worth saying plainly rather than leaving you to find out at the last step. For the full figures, see Maa Lakshmi, Tirupati Balaji and Krishna. We do not make a Sai Baba paduka, a Vishnu padam or a Datta paduka.

Where it goes, and which way it faces

The entrance is the usual place, on a console or a shelf beside the door rather than on the floor where it will be stepped over. After that the pooja room, a shop counter, or the reception desk of an office, where footprints are unmistakably devotional without being as declarative as a full figure. Lakshmi's is traditionally set so that she is walking into the house rather than out of it. That costs nothing to get right and it is the first thing an older relative will check.

Be realistic about the scale. At two to three inches these are token sized, which is exactly the point at a threshold and a disappointment if you were picturing something with presence. Where you want an entrance to look properly furnished, the paduka works better alongside a figure than on its own.

What they are made of, and the one thing that ruins them

A resin core, a layer of copper over it, then gold or silver electroplated on top, and on the Lakshmi piece both. The copper is the layer that matters, because resin cannot be plated directly and the copper is what the precious metal keys onto. It is also why these are light, why the fine relief of the toes and the lotus stays crisp at this size, and why water is the one thing that ruins them. Dust with a soft cloth, keep them dry, and never use metal polish or an acidic paste. Every piece is checked at our own warehouse before it goes out.

Which leads to the one genuine mistake available on this page. Padukas invite abhishek, since washing the feet is the oldest gesture of welcome there is, and a plated piece will not survive it. If you want feet you can bathe daily, that wants solid brass, and we do not cast a paduka in brass. The rest of our plated work is in gold and silver plated idols.

What one costs

Both pieces sit comfortably under 3,000 and nothing here approaches 5,000, so this is an inexpensive way to keep a deity at the door. There is nothing under 500 either, and if that is the budget, a local shop will serve you better than we will.

As a gift it asks less of the recipient than a murti

A Lakshmi charan paduka is among the safer devotional gifts going, because Lakshmi is kept in almost every household whichever deity the family favours, and because it goes straight to the entrance rather than needing shelf space made for it. It suits Dhanteras and Diwali, a griha pravesh, and the opening of a shop or an office, and it works for a room of staff or clients where a figure might feel like an imposition. See griha pravesh and housewarming gifts, Dhanteras and corporate gifts, or the bulk order enquiry page for quantity. Everything ships in our own packaging, made to be opened rather than merely to survive the journey, which counts for something when the thing is handed over in front of a room. To furnish the mandir around it, see pooja essentials, and for the wider pantheon, god idols.