One amongst the eight manifestations of the goddess Lakshmi, Gajalakshmi — ‘elephant Lakshmi’ or ‘Lakshmi with elephants’ — is believed to bestow and symbolise wealth, good fortune, abundance, fertility and well-being. Also known as Kamalatmika — ‘she of the lotus’ — she appears in sculpture, paintings, coins, seals, and gateways and entrances, in Hindu, Buddhist and Jain religious contexts. 

The bejewelled goddess is typically depicted on a lotus base, either standing or seated in padmasana, and flanked by two or more elephants. Often pictured on either side of her at shoulder-level and standing on lotus blooms themselves, the elephants shower her with water, either directly from their trunks or poured from pots held in their trunks. The goddess may be depicted with two or four arms, often holding a lotus in full bloom and performing the reassuring abhaya mudra and boon-bestowing varada mudra. She is often depicted surrounded by lotus stalks with blooms. 

Associated with divinity and royal power — as Indra’s vehicle Airavata, for instance — elephants are also regarded as harbingers of rain in Indic thought. This makes their presence in Gajalakshmi iconography symbolic of fertility and abundance, with the flow of water or nectar commonly thought to signify the prosperity that Lakshmi is believed to bestow. They are sometimes depicted with wings, referencing their form in mythology as aerial creatures previous to being condemned to terrestrial life.

Early textual references to Gajalakshmi appear in the Shri Suktam — a hymn in praise of Shri or Lakshmi — in the Rigveda. Some of the earliest visual depictions of Lakshmi are in her form as Gajalakshmi. These images, dated roughly to the second and first centuries BCE, appear on medallions on the railings and gateways of stupas at the Buddhist sites of Bharhut and Sanchi. From the sixth century onwards Gajalakshmi images began to be incorporated similarly in Hindu architecture. In a number of these images, the lotuses bearing the goddess and the elephants issue from a pot or vase. Known as a purnakalasha, purna ghata or mangala kalasha, the vessel is a symbol of auspicious abundance. Gajalakshmi images following this schema from this period appear largely on terracotta relief panels as well as on coins issued by various dynasties, discovered in the areas of present-day Mathura, Kaushambi, Ujjain, Sanchi and Ayodhya in northern India.