Marriage or Wedding Ceremonies - Almost everyone in India gets married.
For twice-born males, marriage is a religious obligation
that pays off one of their Three Debts, in this instance the debt owed to their
ancestors.
Householders born into one of India's three
"twice-born" classes, brahmin, kshatriya, or vaishya, are known as
twice-born men.
Such guys are eligible for the "second birth," a
kind of adolescent religious initiation.
The identity of most Hindu women is defined by their roles
as spouses and mothers.
Marriage is also the catalyst for the formation and growth
of families.
Marriage is the single most important event in most people's
life since the family is considered the backbone of Hindu society.
Since of the importance of marriage in Hindu culture, this
life-changing event is fraught with danger because there is no guarantee of
success.
Other possible threats stem from the unlucky quality of
specific periods and individuals, as well as the notion that this unluckiness
will bring bad luck in the future.
Finally, since the bride and groom are the focus of
attention in the days leading up to the wedding, there is a risk that ill will
and jealousy from others would release malicious and hidden forces.
Hindu weddings, like many other life changes, are attended
with careful consideration for recognizing invisible influences that may have a
detrimental impact on the couple's future existence and protecting the bride
and groom from them.
To begin the marriage on the greatest possible footing, the
wedding is always held at an astrologically fortunate period.
The bride is often sequestered in the days leading up to the
wedding to avoid coming into touch with individuals or things considered
unlucky.
Both the bride and groom are anointed and decked like
deities in a temple on their wedding day—according to popular belief, the pair
becomes Lakshmi and Vishnu, god and goddess, on their wedding day.
When they are outdoors in the world, they are in ritual
danger, both from the multitude of sources for ritual impurity (ashaucha) and
from the belief that they are more sensitive to the evil eye (nazar) and other
types of witchcraft.
When the bride or groom must be in the public sight, such as
when the groom and his group of friends go in triumphal procession to the
wedding hall, as is common in northern India, these hazards are fought with
amulets and different ceremonies of protection.
Because they are in a tight and ritually controlled
environment, surrounded by family and friends, the threat is less immediate
once they are inside.
According to the eight classical forms of marriage accepted
in the dharma canon, there is no singular Hindu marriage ritual.
The Asura form, in which the groom's family pays a
brideprice to obtain the bride, and the Brahma form, in which the bride's
family gives their daughter to the groom without any conditions (although the
groom's family can usually expect a dowry with the bride in modern times), are
the two forms most commonly practiced today.
The Brahma marriage is the most common and has a
significantly greater social rank.
Although there is regional and denominational variety in
wedding ceremonies in such a marriage, several shared customs indicate key
cultural assumptions.
The transfer of the bride from her family to her husband's
family, and the irreversible merger of the bride and groom into a new entity,
the married couple, are the two key themes of a Hindu marriage.
The bride is transferred at the kanyadan rite, which is also
known as the "gift of the virgin" and is conducted by the bride's
father.
Several typical traditions represent the bride and groom's
marital union, including pani grahana, in which the groom takes the bride's
hand as a sign of their connection.
The saptapadi, or "seven steps" that the bride and
groom take jointly, is another such ceremonial that is regarded the defining
moment of the marriage.
The bride's transfer to the groom's family is completed at
the seventh phase, at which time the marriage becomes irreversible.
The sapta padi is often done in combination with another ritual,
the agnipradak shinam ("circumambulating the fire"), in current
times.
Instead of walking seven steps, the bride and groom spin
around a tiny fire seven times.
On the one hand, the presence of fire indicates that
marriage is a Vedic yajna (sacrifice).
On the other hand, since fire is associated with the Vedic
deity Agni, he serves as the divine witness to the wedding.
The bride and groom are often physically connected during
the circumambulations by attaching a portion of his turban to the fringe of her
sari.
This apparent tie between them is simply another proof of
the newly developed inner togetherness.
As previously said, rather than a reciprocal metamorphosis,
the wife's identity is "assimilated" to her husband's.
In northern India, following marriage, the bride lives with
her husband's family; her new identity is completely based on her connection
with her spouse, whilst his identity is largely untouched, although enhanced by
marriage.
See Pandurang Vaman Kane (trans. ), A History of Dharmasastra,
1968, and Raj Bali Pandey, Hindu Samskaras, 1969, for further details.
Lawrence Babb's The Divine Hierarchy, published in 1975,
contains information on present practice.
See also the eight classical kinds of marriage.
You may also want to read more about Hinduism here.
Be sure to check out my writings on religion here.
