Sacred Rituals of Bengali Brahmin Matrimony
In a Bengali community, love marriage is common like a arrange marriage, That,s why they have a modern outlook on love and relationship. The wedding ceremony is only stunning accession and celebrated with a lot of joy and also celebrate like a festival. Traditional Music, Delicious food and a large number of gathering create an incredible combination. The wedding of Bengali Brahmin Matrimony must follow the Hindu scripture and their rituals, although they add their own Bengali twist in the rituals. Due to this Bengali brahmin weddings start before one week or more. Firstly Brahmin Bhoaj is held in their respective family for blessing of happy married life.
The Bengali Brahmin wedding starts with gaaye holud and aaye buro bhaath. It is the most common and famous pre-wedding rituals. Bengali brahmin does not include the fish in their rituals and even not used in food. They serve pure vegetarian to their guests only. The gaaye holud ceremony is performed strictly at their timing and you can not break it until the end. In these rituals, Elders of the family of bride and groom visit the near pond or river and there they take a holy bath. Then the holy bath is assumed to be completed.
At the wedding day, brides family welcome the groom and their family & friends at the wedding venue and the groom is accompanied to the mandap where the next ceremony is held. Before start the wedding ceremony, the groom is presented with new clothes by the bride’s family member. It is Potto Bastra and now the groom changes the clothes and adopts the new clothes which are presented by the bride’s family.
The next is the garland exchange ceremony where the bride and groom exchange the garlands to each other. It is a symbol of the bride and groom accept each other and ready to lead together as a husband and wife
Next, the Sampradan ritual is followed where the bride is officially hand over the groom for a long life. During this, the priest continues chanting mantras and the holy thread is tied the bride and groom hands for further procedure.
In a Bengali Brahmin wedding, The bride is carried by the family member and bride is settled on the small table. A Yagna is a final and special ceremony where the bride and groom take the seven rounds against the holy fire. During this ceremony, the bride and groom make a certain promise to each other. After completing the saat phere bride’s brother place the puffed rice, flowers and other objects at the bridegroom's hand and all these objects pour into the holy fire for blessing and now the groom put the sindoor. It is the symbol of marriage in Indian culture. It is the last ceremony of wedding and mark as complete of the wedding.
Final Thoughts: There is no major difference in rituals of Bengali Brahmin wedding and Bengali Matrimonial. Just the Bengali use fish in some ceremonies, otherwise, the rituals are approximately the same.
