Hindu Law and Custom (Recht und Sitte) c7.579

c7.579

Negotiations, binding in themselves, used to be carried on before the *vivāha*, and probably even fresh festivals were celebrated at the beginning of the conjugal life. According to Nār. 12, 2 f. the sacrament (*saṃskāra*) of the wedding consists of two parts, wooing or choosing of bride (*varaṇa*), and holding the hand (*pāṇigrahaṇa*) along with the Mantras accompanying these ceremonies, but the courting (*varaṇa*) or the betrothal of the bride (*vāgdāna*) may be regarded as null if any concealed defect (*doṣa*), i. e. deformity or any gross corporeal or spiritual malady, is discovered in the bride or the bridegroom. While courting and betrothal were apparently separated from the wedding only by a short interval, it depended on the attainment of puberty how soon the postponed ceremony of taking the bride to the house of the bridegroom should take place and therewith the conjugal life should begin. At the first *ṛtu*, i. e. on the 5. to the 16. night after the attainment of puberty, or even at a later *ṛtu*, the ceremony bearing the significant name "impregnation" (*garbhādhāna*) takes place. It is probably even a Vedic custom and it is the first of the 12 or 16 sacraments (*saṃskāras*) of life of the Indians beginning with the germination of life.