amuletsNimbu mirchiनींबू मिर्ची

said NEEM-boo MIR-chee

also: lemon and chillies · lime and seven chillies · nazar battu

amuletSouth AsiaIndia Pakistanconfidence mediumneeds checking

A lime and seven green chillies threaded on a string and hung at a doorstep, over a shop counter or from the back of a vehicle. Nothing is worn and nothing is written. The thing rots in the sun, browns, and is replaced.

cited

Hindi nīmbū 'lime, lemon' + mirchī 'chilli' — the object is named by its two ingredients and nothing else
The wider class word is nazar battu, from nazar, the harmful look, in Hindustani. cited

When

undated; carried now still carried cited

Period	not dated in the sources read
How the date is known	nobody here could date it
Note	The texts that name Alakshmi — the Linga Purana, the Padma Purana, the Śrī Sūkta — are not dated in the source, and the source dates the doorstep practice not at all. A start year would be invented, so there is none.

Years are stored astronomically — 1 CE is 1, 1 BCE is 0, 500 BCE is −499 — and printed the way a reader says them. How these dates are made.

The thing itself

Form	Door or lintel piece
Made of	Herb and root · Thread and cord
Goes	At the door · At the till · In a vehicle
Made by	anybody; sold ready-strung at markets and traffic lights
Counted	7
Colour	green · yellow
Retired	yes — it is replaced rather than kept
Note	The count of seven green chillies with one lime is the one given in the source. Replacement when it dries is the ordinary practice; no source read here states an interval, so none is given.

What its carriers say it stops

Reported, attributed, not tested here. Each row below is somebody's claim, with their name on it.

The evil eye — harm carried by a look, often an admiring one citedsaid by wearers and householders in North India and Pakistan, for whom this is one of the nazar battu class
Envy — a neighbour's ill will, named as such citedsaid by the North Indian and Pakistani account of nazar: excessive admiration, even from well-meaning people, draws it
Bad luck, unspecified citedsaid by Hindu households in northern India, in the Alakshmi reading of the stringthe competing reading in the same source has Alakshmi pleased by sour and spicy offerings and taking her share at the door
"the sourness of the lime and the pungency of the chilies combined creates a smell that even Alakshmi cannot tolerate"

The story

Two explanations of the same string circulate, and they disagree about who the string is for.

In Hindu households, especially in northern India, hanging a lime and seven green chillies at the doorstep is a ritual to either ward off or acknowledge Alakshmi, the goddess of misfortune and grief, whose name means not-Lakshmi. One version holds that the sourness of the lime and the pungency of the chillies together make a smell even Alakshmi cannot tolerate. The other holds that Alakshmi is pleased by sour and spicy offerings, and will take her share standing at the door — which makes the string a payment at the threshold rather than a barrier across it. Alakshmi is not named in Vedic, Upanishadic or early Puranic literature; she is named in the Linga Purana, the Padma Purana and the Śrī Sūkta.

The string also belongs to a wider North Indian and Pakistani class, the nazar battu, whose logic is spoilage. A nazar battu is often a deliberate blemish introduced to prevent perfection: a black mark on the face or neck of a loved one, a flaw built into an otherwise faultless house, a stitching or colouring error put into an expensive carpet or sari. Mothers lightly spit to the side of their children to imply disparagement, and children are marked with a black spot on the cheek, because excessive admiration — even from well-meaning people, even a mother's own love — is held to draw nazar.

Inference — a lime and chillies at a shop door belong to that logic rather than to the eye-against-the-eye logic of the Mediterranean. The object is not looking back. It is either an imperfection hung where the perfect thing is, or a plate left out for the guest nobody wants inside.

cited

How it is made and carried

Bought made up, at the price of a lime. Threaded so the chillies hang below the fruit, tied at a lintel, a counter, a bumper or a dashboard. It is a household act, not a specialist's: no source read here names a priest, a mantra or a consecration for it.

tradition

Now

Ordinary street furniture in North Indian and Pakistani towns as of 2026, on shopfronts, new cars and trucks. The phrase nazar battu has also gone idiomatic: commentators in North India and Pakistan use it for a person or thing that is unwanted but has to be tolerated, as some of the press did of Pervez Musharraf during Pakistan's transition to democracy at the 2008 general election.

cited

What this is near

practiceHanging at the doorthe practice this object is: a charm that guards a threshold instead of a person motifThe eyethe harm it answers, though not the method — this string does not look back, it spoils the look parallelNazarthe glass bead sold for the same harm two thousand kilometres west, and the one this atlas usually shows first parallelTabizthe written answer to nazar in the same streets, worn on the body while this hangs at the door parallelHorseshoeEurope's door-hung answer, nailed above the same opening for a different reason traditionKavacha — the Hindu armour traditionthe tradition this sits at the household end of, far from any consecrated plate storyThe eye everywherethe long read that asks whether a lime in Delhi and a bead in Istanbul are answering the same thing

What names this one

Each in its own words, from its own page.

parallelTabizwhat hangs in the doorway of the same street against the same look, made of a lemon rather than a verse carriesKavacha — the Hindu armour traditionits household end — no text, no specialist, a lime at a doorstep parallelThe eyeSouth Asia's answer to the same harm, hung in a doorway instead of worn parallelHerb and rootSouth Asia's hung plant charm, doing at a doorway what the Italian chili string does parallelHanging at the doorSouth Asia's hanging version, strung in a doorway rather than fixed to it parallelThe eye everywherethe South Asian answer, hung in a doorway rather than worn, and burnt afterwards

Where this came from

Nazar battu — Wikipedia read 2026-09-16
Alakshmi — Wikipedia read 2026-09-16
Evil eye — Wikipedia read 2026-09-16

Elsewhere

Record updated 2026-09-16. This record as JSON. Every field carries its own provenance; the tier chips above say which.

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