Spicy Ceremony

     A Hindu marriage symbolizes not just coming together of two individuals, but also the bonding of understanding, commitment, mutual love, oneness and spiritual growth. Traditionally, Hindu marriage is much more than just celebration and fun. It demands sacrifice, companionship, dedication, and devotion from both the partners. The ceremonies practiced are essentially divided into three parts - pre wedding customs, wedding day ceremony and post wedding rituals. The rituals and customs performed in each of the three phases have a deep significance and meaning. The pre wedding celebrations mainly includes engagement, sangeet, mehendi, haldi and tilak. Coming to the wedding day ceremonies, it involves different traditional rituals, each having its own meaning and role.

Jaimala (Exchange of Garlands)

The couple exchanges garlands as a gesture of acceptance of one another and a pledge to respect one another as partners.

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Madhupak (Offering of Yogurt and Honey)
The bride's father offers the groom yogurt and honey as the expression of welcome and respect.

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Kanyadan (Giving Away of the Bride)
The father of the bride places her hand in the groom's hand requesting him to accept her as an equal partner. The concept behind Kanyadan is that the bride is a form of the goddess Lamxi and the groom is Lord Narayana. The parents are facilitating their union.
Havan (Lighting of the Sacred Fire)
The couple invokes Agni, the god of Fire, to witness their commitment to each other. Crushed sandalwood, herbs, sugar rice and oil are offered to the ceremonial fire.
Rajaham (Sacrifice to the Sacred Fire)
The bride places both her hands into the groom's and her brother then places rice into her hands. Together the bride and groom offer the rice as a sacrifice into the fire.
Gath Bandhan (Tying of the Nuptial Knot)
The scarves placed around the bride and groom are tied together symbolizing their eternal bond. This signifies their pledge before God to love each other and remain faithful.
Mangalphera (Walk Around the Fire)
The couple makes four Mangalpheras around the fire in a clockwise direction representing four goals in life: Dharma, religious and moral duties; Artha, prosperity; Kama, earthly pleasures; Moksha, spiritual salvation and liberation. The bride leads the Pheras first, signifying her determination to stand first beside her husband in all happiness and sorrow.

Saptapardi (Seven Steps Together)
The bride and groom walk seven steps togehr to signify the beginning of their journey through life together. Each step represents a marital vow:
First step: To respect and honor each other
Second step: To share each other's joy and sorrow
Third step: To trust and be loyal to each other
Fourth step: To cultivate appreciation for knowledge, values, sacrifice and service
Fifth step: To reconfirm their vow of purity, love family duties and spiritual growth
Sixth step: To follow principles of Dharma (righteousness) Seventh step: To nurture an eternal bond of friendship and love
Jalastnchana (Blessing of the Couple)
The parents of the bride and groom bless the wedded couple by dipping a rose in water and sprinking it over the couple.
Sindhoor (Red Powder)
The groom applies a small dot of vermilion, a powdered red lead, to the bride's forehead and welcomes her as his partner for life. It is applied for the first time to a woman during the marriage ceremony when the bridegroom himself adorns her with it.
Aashirvad (Parental Blessing)
The parents of the bride and groom give their blessings to the couple. The couple touches the feet of their parents as a sign of respect.
Menhdi (Henna Ceremony)
The traditional art of adorning the hands and feet with a paste made from the finely ground leaves of the Henna plant. The term refers to the material, the design, and the ceremony. It is tradition for the names of the bride and groom to be hidden in the design, and the wedding night is not to commence until the groom has found both names. After the wedding, the bride is not expected to perform any housework until her Menhdi has faded away.
Mangalasutra (Thread of Goodwill)
A necklace worn specifically by married women as a symbol of their marriage. 




(http://weddings.iloveindia.com/indian-weddings/hindu-marriage/mangalsutra-significance.html)
(http://www.weddingdetails.com/lore/hindu.cfm)

Spicy Wardrobe

     Marriages are celebrated in India as a sacrament (Sanskara), a rite enabling two individuals to start their journey in life together which lays on the three essential values: happiness, harmony and growth. In a Hindu wedding, the multiplicity of creation becomes possible when spirit (Purush) unites with matter (Prakritti).

     

     They have many different wedding ceremony rituals according to their caste class. Colors!! Red! Pink! Green! Yellow! Can you imagine a wedding ceremony that all these magnificent harmony among these colors?  Their customs are very colorful mesmerize the whole world by their delightful outerwear.

     Sari is a long dress which it should drape over the bride’s hair. Traditionally, the bride wears a red, yellow or peach sari. Beside their colorful sari, the gold jewelry is their prefer as accessorize. Jura pins (hair accessorizes), toe rings, gold bracelets and colored Jhumka bangles are little details to wear them to show their bravery celebrating style.

You can find it here

You can find it here

     Another feature of the bride’s wardrobe which become popular abroad now on days is the use of henna to decorate their hands and feet. The designs applied have different significance like protection, spiritual, fertility, wisdom and happiness. 

     Also another indispensable point is to put on brilliant traditional Indian accessorizes. The bride’s jewelries can be the toe rings, bangles, jura pins, earrings, rings and brooches.

You can find it here 

     When it comes to the groom, he wears a kafni (long shirt extending to the knees) with leggings or short of an overgrown loincloth (dhoti). Similarly, the groom might also wear a turban which compatible to his special cloth. 

Why Spicy India?

You can find the original photo here

     "There is no more lovely, friendly and charming relationship, communion or company than a good marriage." said Martin Luther. But before living a happy life with your husband or wife there is a magnificent and unique dream to live- wedding! Over the world, people celebrate their wedding ceremonies according to their cultures long history of meaning. I would like to put aside the Western European and North America cliches and get into the traditions in Turkey, India and Japan.

     You may ask why particularly those 3 countries I decided on blogging. Good question. Let me explain why spicy India was my choice. Let's go to 1700 BC, India was one of the civilization at those times around Anatolia. India has been ordered by the system which is called Caste. According to that system about marriages, it is impossible to marry to someone in different classes. Aristocrats must marry to someone also in leisured class. When it comes to the lowest class, villagers do marry to someone in the same class either. I really impressed this system, because I was grown used to the fairytales have caharacters as a poor boy and a princess or one of the American movies "The Prince and Me". Also, in India Budism, Hinduism, Muslim are common religions. I wonder how a Hindu wedding rituals.
    


    
    

    

Fresh Start for the Happy Ending

     Hello!

     Who does not love a fresh start? I do love it.  This is third experience on blogging. The first one was like column that I shared my inner thoughts about people and events. When I start writing, I had thought that it would be easy, because what I want to write was tip on my tongue so my fingers can type the letters quickly. Yet, it did not go like as I wished. As Mary Pickford said, we may have a fresh start any moment we choose, for this thing we call 'failure' not the falling down. With the power of this saying and the assignment which was given by my English teacher, Ms.Johnson, I made a fresh start about blogging, again. 


     In the cloud of Internet, there are lots of blogs, mine will be one of them, from now on. In the process of creating a blog, I cannot deny that 'making a research' part was 'hard & enjoyable'. I cannot decide on my blogging topic among my different interests, then I decided to create a blog about 'different wedding traditions in Turkey, India and Japan', because I was amazed by wedding photos which are taken by famous photographers and I started to imagine how my wedding ceremony will be like.  There are lots of blogs which are written by the brides or the photographers. I must highlight, all those blogs contained high quality and original wedding photos and unique experiences were different from mine; I haven't have my own wedding, so I cannot depict my emotions and experiences. I am just going to tell traditions. I haven't attended in so many wedding ceremonies like the girl in the movie '27 Dresses', but with the help of this blog, you and I will be witnesses for their warm smile on their valuable day.