Wedding

Indian Wedding (vivaah or shaadī in Hindi and panigrahana in Sanskrit) ceremonies are traditionally conducted in Sanskrit, the language in which most holy Hindu ceremonies are conducted. They have many rituals that have evolved since traditional times and differ in many ways from the modern western wedding ceremony and also among the regions and caste. The Hindus attach a lot of importance to weddings and the ceremonies are very colourful and extend for several days. By the Hindu Marriage Act of 1955 passed by the Union Parliament of India, for all legal purposes, all Hindus of any caste, creed or sect, Sikh, Budhhists and Jains are considered as Hindus for the sake of the Hindu marriage Act’and can hence intermarry. By the Special Marriage Act, 1954, a Hindu can marry with a non-Hindu employing any ceremony provided certain legal conditions are fulfilled.

The pre-wedding ceremonies include engagement (involving vagdana or oral agreement and lagna-patra written declaration), and arrival of the marriage party at the brides residence, often in the form of a marriage procession.

An important thing to note is that despite the fact that the modern Hinduism is based on the puja form of the worship of devas as enshrined in the Puranas, a Hindu marriage ceremony is essentially a Vedic yaj’a (a fire-sacrifice), in which the Aryan deities are invoked in the archaic Indo-Aryan style. The primary witness of a Hindu marriage is the fire-deity (or the Sacred Fire) Agni, and by law and by tradition, no Hindu marriage is deemed complete unless in the presence of the Sacred Fire, seven encirclements have been made around it by the bride and the groom together.