The Dabistán, or School of manners, Volume 2 (of 3): translated from the original Persian, with notes and illustrations
Religion
The Dabistán, or School of manners, Volume 2 (of 3): translated from the original Persian, with notes and illustrations
Iran -- Religion; Religions
this condition, that they do not join their husband in partaking of
food or drink.
Among the Hindus there are five modes of contracting marriage;[107]
the first, or _Viváha_, after this form: the damsel’s father looks out
for a son-in-law, to whom he presents money and goods in proportion to
his means, and gives him his daughter, which is the most legitimate
mode.[108] The second is the _Asurvívahah_, when without the consent
of the father or mother, by employing force and violence, or the
influence of money, the damsel is forcibly taken by the bridegroom
from her parents’ house to his own, and there married to him. The
third is the _Gandharviváhah_, when the bridegroom takes the damsel
away with her consent, but without the approbation of her parents, and
espouses her at his own house. The fourth is the _Rákshasa-viváha_,
when the parties on both sides are at the head of armies, and the
damsel, being taken away by force, becomes the victor’s bride.
The fifth is the _Písácha-viváha_, when the lover, without obtaining
the sanction of the girl’s parents, takes her home by means of
talismans, incantations, and such like magical practices, and then
marries her. Písách, in Sanscrit, is the name of a demon, which takes
whatever person it fixes on, and as the above kind of marriage takes
place after the same manner, it has been called by this name.
On espousing a damsel, the intelligent Brahman, having taken the
bride’s hand into his own, must go through the established forms
prescribed by his faith, and move seven steps in advance.[109] When he
espouses the daughter of a Chattrí, at the time of solemnizing the
marriage, an arrow is to be held at one extremity by the bridegroom,
and at the other by the bride; on contracting an alliance with a
merchant’s daughter, the bride and bridegroom are to hold a scourge or
some similar object in the same manner; on his marriage with the
virgin daughter of a cultivator, the parties mark their union by a
token of secret intimacy. When they deliver the bride to her husband,
if her father be not alive, or her paternal grandfather, or if her
brothers be not forthcoming on the occasion, then the most respectable
person of the tribe or family is to perform the necessary ceremonies;
and if the relations be not intelligent, then the damsel’s mother.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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