Note 21 — P (Continued)

The marriage ceremony is, in ordinary cases, completed in one day, but the tendency is to spread it over three days, and introduce the standard Purānic form of ritual. On the day preceding the wedding-day, the bride is brought in procession to the house of the bridegroom, and the marriage pots are brought by a woman of the potter caste. On the wedding morning, the marriage dais is got ready, and the milk-post, pots, and lights are placed thereon. Bride and bridegroom go separately through the nalagu ceremony. They are seated on a plank, and five women smear them with oil by means of a culm of grass (Cynodon Dactylon), and afterwards with Phaseolus Mungo (green gram) paste. Water coloured with turmeric and chunām (ārathi) is then waved round them, to avert the evil eye, and they are conducted to the bathing-place. While they are bathing, five small cakes are placed on various parts of the body—knees, shoulders, head, etc. When the bridegroom is about to leave the spot, cooked rice, contained in a sieve, is waved before him, and thrown away. The bridal couple are next taken three times round the dais, and they offer pongal (cooked rice) to the village and house gods and the ancestors, in five pots, in which the rice has been very carefully prepared, so as to avoid pollution of any kind, by a woman who has given birth to a first child. They then dress themselves in their wedding finery, and get ready for the tying of the tāli. Meanwhile, the milk-post, made of Odina Wodier, Erythrina indica, or the handle of a plough, has been set up. At its side are placed a grindstone, a large pot, and two lamps called kuda-vilakku (pot light) and alankara-vilakku (ornamental light). The former consists of a lighted wick in an earthenware tray placed on a pot, and the latter of a wooden stand with several branches supporting a number of lamps. It is considered an unlucky omen if the pot light goes out before the conclusion of the ceremonial. It is stated by Mr. H. A. Stuart21 that in the North Arcot district “in the marriage ceremony of the Vanniyans or Pallis, the first of the posts supporting the booth must be cut from the vanni (Prosopis spicigera), a tree which they hold in much reverence because they believe that the five Pandava Princes, who were like themselves Kshatriyas, during the last year of their wanderings, deposited their arms in a tree of this species. On the tree the arms turned into snakes, and remained untouched till the owners’ return.” The Prosopis tree is worshipped in order to obtain pardon from sins, success over enemies, and the realisation of the devotee’s wishes.