that other people’s ill will and envy may
unleash malevolent and unseen forces. As
with many of the other life transitions,
Hindu marriages are attended with con-
siderable attention to discerning the
unseen forces that could have a negative
affect on the couple’s future life and pro-
tecting the bride and groom from them.
The wedding is always performed at an
astrologically auspicious time, to start the
marriage on the best possible note. In the
days before the wedding, the bride is often
secluded, keeping her from coming in
contact with people or things deemed
inauspicious. On their wedding day both
the bride and groom are anointed and
adorned similar to the deitiesin a tem-
ple—according to popular belief, on their
wedding day, the couple become Lakshmi
and Vishnu, god and goddess. This
heightened status puts them in ritual dan-
ger when they are outside in the world,
both from the legion of sources for ritual
impurity (ashaucha), and because they
are believed to be more susceptible to the
evil eye (nazar) and other forms of witch-
craft. These dangers are countered by
amulets and various rites of protection
when the bride or groom must be in the
public eye, such as when the groom and
his group of friends travel in triumphal
procession to the wedding hall, as is com-
mon in northern India. Once inside, the
danger is less pressing, since they are in a
closed and ritually structured environ-
ment, surrounded by family and friends.
There is no single Hindu marriage
ceremony, as is clear from the eight clas-
sical forms of marriage recognized in
the dharma literature. Of these eight,
the two forms generally practiced today
are the Asuraform, in which the groom’s
family gives money as a bridepriceto
obtain the bride; and the Brahmaform,
in which the bride’s family gives their
daughter to the groom, without making
any conditions on him at all (although
in contemporary times the groom’s
family can usually expect a dowry
with the bride). The Brahma marriage
carries much higher social status and
is the most popular form. Although in
such a marriage the wedding cere-
monies have regional and sectarian
variation, certain common rites reveal
important cultural assumptions.
The two major themes in a Hindu mar-
riage are the transfer of the bride from her
family to her husband’s family, and the
indissoluble merging of bride and groom
into a new entity, the married couple. The
transfer of the bride is done in the
kanyadan ritual, the “gift of the virgin”
performed by the bride’s father. The bride
and groom’s marital union is symbolized
by several common rites, including pani-
grahana, in which the groom takes the
bride’s hand as a sign of their union.
Another such rite, considered the defining
point of the marriage, is the saptapadi, the
“seven steps” which the bride and groom
take together. The seventh step completes
the bride’s transfer to the groom’s family; it
is at this point that the marriage becomes
indissoluble. In modern times the sapta-
padi is often performed in conjunction
with another ceremony, the agnipradak-
shinam(“circumambulating the fire”).
Instead of taking seven steps, the bride
and groom make seven revolutions
around a small fire. On one hand, the pres-
ence of fire shows that marriage is a yajna
or Vedic sacrifice. On the other, since the
fire is considered to be the Vedic god Agni,
he becomes the divine witness to the mar-
riage. During the circumambulations the
bride and groom are often physically
joined by tying part of his turban to the
edge of her sari. This visible bond between
them is yet another sign of the inner union
that has just been formed.
As described, in marriage the wife’s
identity is “assimilated” to her hus-
band’s, rather than some sort of mutual
transformation. In northern India, the
bride lives with her husband’s family
after the marriage; her new identity
stems solely from her relationship
with her husband, whereas his iden-
tity remains essentially unchanged,
although augmented by marriage. For
further information see Pandurang
Vaman Kane (trans.), A History of
Dharmasastra, 1968; and Raj Bali
Pandey, Hindu Samskaras, 1969.
For information on modern practice,Marriage Ceremonies