Indian Marriage Customs and Rituals

The Sacraments of Hinduism have social spiritual as well as scientific importance. They fill the mind with noble and virtuous thoughts and help humans lead a happy and contented life even as they have been proved to be beneficial. The volume aims to familiarize the readers with one of the most important sacraments that relating to marriage.

Marriage is considered a very significant to a close relationship between a man and a woman as husband and wife. If is therefore also called a social system. The rituals vary depending upon the community the religion and the state where that are performed. The marriage customs, rites and ritual among royal families are mentioned in this book most of these rituals are followed by common people as well and are performed in the original or altered forms in the Indian society.

Mr.R.N. Kogata and Mrs. Lalita Kogata did a lot of research and consulted several authorities and have written in detail about all the important rituals involved in Vivaah Samskaara (Marriage). The volume will interest scholars of Indology as well as general readers who want to know more about Indian social and religious traditions.

Mr R.N. Kogata and Mrs. Lalita Kogata have probably the world’s biggest creation and collection of more then 7,800 types of statues/idols and paintings of Lord Ganesha. They run a Ganesha Gallery as well in Udaipur, Rajasthan.

Other books authored by them are Maa-the Mother, Pita-The father, Pati the Husband in the eyes of wife, Patnee-the Wife in the eyes of Husband and Insaan.

The Kogata couple have already created 1,000 different paintings of Lord Ganesha based on the 1000 names of the elephant-faced god Ganesha as given in Hindu scriptures.

Mr Kogata is a Chartered Accountant and Company secretary by profession and Mrs. Kogata is a post-graduate and a part company secretary. They have two-sons, Devashish and Kushagra. Devashish is also an artist and has already made more than 700 pencil sketches on lord Genesha.

First we invoke the lord of the Gods, the chief of the hosts the omnipresent guide and helpmate, Lord Vinayakji, to assist us in conducting ceremonies according to our culture.

In return for his beneficient leelaas and assistance our culture reveres and respects Vinayakji as the first God to be worshipped with devotion before we start any work.

We are ever grateful that Bhagwan Ganesh has chosen us through his Grace to undertake the writing of this book. At every moment of our life we have experienced the magnificence of his Grace and it is our firm belief that whatever be the act or deed nothing happens without the blessing of Sri Ganapati. “Ganapati is everywhere, Ganapati is in everyone’s mind the whole universe came out of Ganapati, “This is our conviction which has been supported by the various Puranas and literature. We have tried to see Ganapati sitting sleeping and while wide-awake and by his grace we have succeeded. Through various incidents happenings and associations we have realized the connections of Ganapati’s picture idol with our lives and have etched his figure in our minds.

In order to create spiritual awareness an to rid the humanity of impurities our ancient rishis and munis have formulated some doctrines and rules by followings which we can purify the soul of a child at the time of its conception, from its sins accumulated form all its previous births and imbibe it with noble purpose and unblemished culture Good sacraments give in one’s life, happiness, merriment, plenitude, progress, addition of virtues and assured place in heaven after death and a re-birth in a noble family. Therefore it is essential for the present and future generations to have a thorough knowledge of our well intentioned sacraments.

After following the various sacrament one day the idea came to our mind that we should associate Ganapati with the rituals connected with the popular customs of marriages in our society and see Ganapati taking part in all the ceremonies. The result is that we have narrated here in brief sixteen important sacraments, together with detailed description of the various ceremonies involved in the sacraments and the different items required for the proper conduct of the ceremonies, so that we can bring out a book which is both authentic and authoritative. These sacraments have scientific and social importance, but we have reframed from any comment on them or interpreting them to prove or justify their rightness. The days now are not for joint families people do not have the time to conduct ceremonies as required by custom and to add to these there is no detailed or complete information about the ceremonies. Further we tend to follow Western culture blindly to such an extent that we may even forget our own Indian or Hindu culture. An effort has been made to give as much detailed information as possible on the different sacraments so that we can not only preserve our valued heritage and culture intact also enjoy the ceremonies in the company of our families.

People have different opinions about the marriage of lord Ganesh. Some say that Ganeshji is not married at all. But in Brahmavaivarta purana Shiva Genesha Purana, Mudgal Purana, Narad Purana etc. there are descriptions about Geneshji’s weeding and about his marrying Riddhi and Siddhi. After going through all those writings we decided to portray Ganeshji as the bridegroom in this book. We have done this with a clear mind pure heart and unflinching faith or Bhakti in Bhagawan Ganapati But Knowingly or unknowingly if we have wounded anyone’s sentiments we seek pardon from those affected and from Bhagawan Sri Ganesh.

We are indeed delighted to his highness Shriji Arvind Singh Mewar for his worthy guidance and support from time to time, without which our dream would not have come true. For collection of material for the book, we have taken the help of not only our elders vidwans, pundits and purohits but also various scriptures and books on the subject we are grateful to all of them. We cannot and we will not forget the blessings of our parents Shri Bhairav Lal Kogata and Smt Kanchan Devi Kogata and Prof K.M Nuwal and Smt Kamal Devi Nuwal due to which we have always got success after success and reached to this status in our life.

We crave the love and blessings if everyone