Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India.djvu/395

 the permission of all assembled, let me begin the Vratams Prājāpathyam, Soumyam, Āgnēyam, and Vaiswadēvam, and let me also close them." All the Vratams should be performed long before the marriage. In practice, however, this is not done, so the bridegroom performs an expiatory ceremony, to make up for the omission. This consists in offering oblations of ghī, and giving presents of money to a few Brāhmans. The bridegroom is helped throughout the Vratam ceremonies by a spiritual teacher or guru, who is usually his father or a near relation. The guru sprinkles water over the bridegroom's body, and tells him to go on with kāndarishi tharpanam (offerings of water, gingelly, and rice, as an oblation to Rishis). A small copper or silver vessel is placed on a leaf to the north-east of the sacred fire, and is made to represent Varuna. A new cloth is placed round the vessel. The various Vratams mentioned are gone through rapidly, and consist of offerings of ghī through fire to the various Dēvatas and Pitris. The Nāndhi Srādh, or memorial service to ancestors, is then performed. The bridegroom next dresses up as a married man, and proceeds on a mock pilgrimage to a distant place. This is called Paradēsa Pravesam (going to a foreign place), or Kāsiyatra (pilgrimage to Benares). It is a remnant of the Snāthakarma rite, whereat a Brahmachāri, or student, leaves his spiritual teacher's house at the close of his studies, performs a ceremony of ablution, and becomes an initiated householder or Snāthaka. The bridegroom carries with him an umbrella, a fan, and a bundle containing some rice, cocoanut, and areca-nut. He usually goes eastward. His future father-in-law meets him, and brings him to the house at which the marriage is to be celebrated. As soon as he has arrived there, the bride is brought, dressed up and