{
 "schema": 1,
 "id": "nimbu-mirchi",
 "type": "amulet",
 "names": {
  "name": "Nimbu mirchi",
  "native": "नींबू मिर्ची",
  "script": "Devanagari",
  "lang": "hi",
  "said": "NEEM-boo MIR-chee",
  "aliases": [
   "lemon and chillies",
   "lime and seven chillies",
   "nazar battu"
  ]
 },
 "etymology": {
  "root": "Hindi nīmbū 'lime, lemon' + mirchī 'chilli' — the object is named by its two ingredients and nothing else",
  "note": "The wider class word is nazar battu, from nazar, the harmful look, in Hindustani.",
  "tier": "cited",
  "source": "s:wp-nazar-battu"
 },
 "region": [
  "south-asia"
 ],
 "countries": [
  "IN",
  "PK"
 ],
 "facets": {
  "era": "modern",
  "status": "living",
  "portable": "placed",
  "restricted": "open",
  "hemisphere": [
   "N",
   "E"
  ]
 },
 "text": {
  "what": "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.",
  "story": "Two explanations of the same string circulate, and they disagree about who the string is for.\n\nIn 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.\n\nThe 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.\n\n*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.",
  "how": "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.",
  "today": "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."
 },
 "dating": {
  "period": "not dated in the sources read",
  "from_year": null,
  "to_year": null,
  "living": true,
  "label": "undated; carried now",
  "method": "undated",
  "tier": "cited",
  "source": "s:wp-alakshmi",
  "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."
 },
 "object": {
  "form": "door-piece",
  "materials": [
   "herb",
   "thread"
  ],
  "worn": [
   "door",
   "shop",
   "vehicle"
  ],
  "made_by": "anybody; sold ready-strung at markets and traffic lights",
  "count": 7,
  "colour": [
   "green",
   "yellow"
  ],
  "single_use": true,
  "source": "s:wp-alakshmi",
  "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."
 },
 "against": [
  {
   "harm": "evil-eye",
   "who": "wearers and householders in North India and Pakistan, for whom this is one of the nazar battu class",
   "source": "s:wp-nazar-battu",
   "tier": "cited"
  },
  {
   "harm": "envy",
   "who": "the North Indian and Pakistani account of nazar: excessive admiration, even from well-meaning people, draws it",
   "source": "s:wp-nazar-battu",
   "tier": "cited"
  },
  {
   "harm": "bad-luck",
   "who": "Hindu households in northern India, in the Alakshmi reading of the string",
   "quote": "\"the sourness of the lime and the pungency of the chilies combined creates a smell that even Alakshmi cannot tolerate\"",
   "source": "s:wp-alakshmi",
   "tier": "cited",
   "note": "the competing reading in the same source has Alakshmi pleased by sour and spicy offerings and taking her share at the door"
  }
 ],
 "kin": [
  {
   "to": "hanging-at-door",
   "as": "the practice this object is: a charm that guards a threshold instead of a person",
   "rel": "practice"
  },
  {
   "to": "eye",
   "as": "the harm it answers, though not the method — this string does not look back, it spoils the look",
   "rel": "motif"
  },
  {
   "to": "nazar",
   "as": "the glass bead sold for the same harm two thousand kilometres west, and the one this atlas usually shows first",
   "rel": "parallel"
  },
  {
   "to": "tabiz",
   "as": "the written answer to nazar in the same streets, worn on the body while this hangs at the door",
   "rel": "parallel"
  },
  {
   "to": "horseshoe",
   "as": "Europe's door-hung answer, nailed above the same opening for a different reason",
   "rel": "parallel"
  },
  {
   "to": "hindu-kavacha",
   "as": "the tradition this sits at the household end of, far from any consecrated plate",
   "rel": "tradition"
  },
  {
   "to": "the-eye-everywhere",
   "as": "the long read that asks whether a lime in Delhi and a bead in Istanbul are answering the same thing",
   "rel": "story"
  }
 ],
 "links": [
  {
   "label": "Nazar battu — Wikipedia",
   "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazar_battu"
  },
  {
   "label": "Alakshmi — Wikipedia",
   "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alakshmi"
  }
 ],
 "sources": [
  "s:wp-nazar-battu",
  "s:wp-alakshmi",
  "s:wp-evil-eye"
 ],
 "provenance": {
  "default": {
   "tier": "cited",
   "source": "s:wp-nazar-battu"
  },
  "fields": {
   "text.story": {
    "tier": "cited",
    "source": "s:wp-alakshmi",
    "note": "the closing paragraph is marked as this project's inference where it appears"
   },
   "text.how": {
    "tier": "tradition",
    "note": "how it is tied and where it is bought is general knowledge of the practice; the sources read describe the object, not its purchase"
   }
  }
 },
 "images": [],
 "x_commons_files": [
  "File:Nimbu mirchi.jpg"
 ],
 "confidence": "medium",
 "needs_verification": true,
 "updated": "2026-09-16",
 "blurb": "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.",
 "region_terms": [
  {
   "key": "south-asia",
   "name": "South Asia",
   "hemi": [
    "N",
    "E"
   ]
  }
 ],
 "hemispheres": [
  "E",
  "N"
 ],
 "kin_out": [
  {
   "to": "hanging-at-door",
   "type": "practice",
   "name": "Hanging at the door",
   "as": "the practice this object is: a charm that guards a threshold instead of a person",
   "rel": "practice"
  },
  {
   "to": "eye",
   "type": "motif",
   "name": "The eye",
   "as": "the harm it answers, though not the method — this string does not look back, it spoils the look",
   "rel": "motif"
  },
  {
   "to": "nazar",
   "type": "amulet",
   "name": "Nazar",
   "as": "the glass bead sold for the same harm two thousand kilometres west, and the one this atlas usually shows first",
   "rel": "parallel"
  },
  {
   "to": "tabiz",
   "type": "amulet",
   "name": "Tabiz",
   "as": "the written answer to nazar in the same streets, worn on the body while this hangs at the door",
   "rel": "parallel"
  },
  {
   "to": "horseshoe",
   "type": "amulet",
   "name": "Horseshoe",
   "as": "Europe's door-hung answer, nailed above the same opening for a different reason",
   "rel": "parallel"
  },
  {
   "to": "hindu-kavacha",
   "type": "tradition",
   "name": "Kavacha — the Hindu armour tradition",
   "as": "the tradition this sits at the household end of, far from any consecrated plate",
   "rel": "tradition"
  },
  {
   "to": "the-eye-everywhere",
   "type": "story",
   "name": "The eye everywhere",
   "as": "the long read that asks whether a lime in Delhi and a bead in Istanbul are answering the same thing",
   "rel": "story"
  }
 ],
 "source_list": [
  {
   "id": "s:wp-nazar-battu",
   "kind": "encyclopedia",
   "title": "Nazar battu",
   "publisher": "Wikipedia",
   "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazar_battu",
   "accessed": "2026-09-16",
   "license": "CC BY-SA 4.0"
  },
  {
   "id": "s:wp-alakshmi",
   "kind": "encyclopedia",
   "title": "Alakshmi",
   "publisher": "Wikipedia",
   "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alakshmi",
   "accessed": "2026-09-16",
   "license": "CC BY-SA 4.0"
  },
  {
   "id": "s:wp-evil-eye",
   "kind": "encyclopedia",
   "title": "Evil eye",
   "publisher": "Wikipedia",
   "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_eye",
   "accessed": "2026-09-16",
   "license": "CC BY-SA 4.0"
  }
 ],
 "tiers": {
  "text.what": {
   "tier": "cited",
   "source": "s:wp-nazar-battu"
  },
  "text.story": {
   "tier": "cited",
   "source": "s:wp-alakshmi",
   "note": "the closing paragraph is marked as this project's inference where it appears"
  },
  "text.how": {
   "tier": "tradition",
   "note": "how it is tied and where it is bought is general knowledge of the practice; the sources read describe the object, not its purchase"
  },
  "text.today": {
   "tier": "cited",
   "source": "s:wp-nazar-battu"
  },
  "etymology": {
   "tier": "cited",
   "source": "s:wp-nazar-battu"
  },
  "dating": {
   "tier": "cited",
   "source": "s:wp-nazar-battu"
  },
  "object": {
   "tier": "cited",
   "source": "s:wp-nazar-battu"
  }
 },
 "primary_image": null,
 "tag_facts": [],
 "recognition_facts": [],
 "acclaim": 0,
 "against_facts": [
  {
   "key": "evil-eye",
   "label": "The evil eye",
   "gloss": "harm carried by a look, often an admiring one",
   "who": "wearers and householders in North India and Pakistan, for whom this is one of the nazar battu class",
   "quote": "",
   "source": "s:wp-nazar-battu",
   "tier": "cited",
   "note": ""
  },
  {
   "key": "envy",
   "label": "Envy",
   "gloss": "a neighbour's ill will, named as such",
   "who": "the North Indian and Pakistani account of nazar: excessive admiration, even from well-meaning people, draws it",
   "quote": "",
   "source": "s:wp-nazar-battu",
   "tier": "cited",
   "note": ""
  },
  {
   "key": "bad-luck",
   "label": "Bad luck, unspecified",
   "who": "Hindu households in northern India, in the Alakshmi reading of the string",
   "quote": "\"the sourness of the lime and the pungency of the chilies combined creates a smell that even Alakshmi cannot tolerate\"",
   "source": "s:wp-alakshmi",
   "tier": "cited",
   "note": "the competing reading in the same source has Alakshmi pleased by sour and spicy offerings and taking her share at the door"
  }
 ],
 "material_facts": [
  {
   "key": "herb",
   "label": "Herb and root",
   "kind": "plant"
  },
  {
   "key": "thread",
   "label": "Thread and cord",
   "kind": "textile",
   "note": "red thread runs from the Mediterranean to Mongolia"
  }
 ],
 "worn_facts": [
  {
   "key": "door",
   "label": "At the door",
   "group": "placed"
  },
  {
   "key": "shop",
   "label": "At the till",
   "group": "placed"
  },
  {
   "key": "vehicle",
   "label": "In a vehicle",
   "group": "placed"
  }
 ],
 "form_fact": {
  "key": "door-piece",
  "label": "Door or lintel piece"
 },
 "holding_facts": [],
 "span": "undated",
 "country_names": [
  {
   "iso": "IN",
   "name": "India"
  },
  {
   "iso": "PK",
   "name": "Pakistan"
  }
 ],
 "kin_in": [
  {
   "from": "tabiz",
   "type": "amulet",
   "name": "Tabiz",
   "as": "what hangs in the doorway of the same street against the same look, made of a lemon rather than a verse",
   "rel": "parallel"
  },
  {
   "from": "hindu-kavacha",
   "type": "tradition",
   "name": "Kavacha — the Hindu armour tradition",
   "as": "its household end — no text, no specialist, a lime at a doorstep",
   "rel": "carries"
  },
  {
   "from": "eye",
   "type": "motif",
   "name": "The eye",
   "as": "South Asia's answer to the same harm, hung in a doorway instead of worn",
   "rel": "parallel"
  },
  {
   "from": "herb",
   "type": "material",
   "name": "Herb and root",
   "as": "South Asia's hung plant charm, doing at a doorway what the Italian chili string does",
   "rel": "parallel"
  },
  {
   "from": "hanging-at-door",
   "type": "practice",
   "name": "Hanging at the door",
   "as": "South Asia's hanging version, strung in a doorway rather than fixed to it",
   "rel": "parallel"
  },
  {
   "from": "the-eye-everywhere",
   "type": "story",
   "name": "The eye everywhere",
   "as": "the South Asian answer, hung in a doorway rather than worn, and burnt afterwards",
   "rel": "parallel"
  }
 ]
}