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198
THE LIFE STORY OF A JAINA
čaka.
their stool and gives them a few rupees. Sometimes seven lucky women come to the pair whilst they are still standing
on the stool, and seven things are poured into their laps. Ukaraļi Occasionally on the night after the booth was erected girls Notari.
go outside the great gate of the house and, after singing auspicious songs, dig a little hole in which they place small copper coins and grains, carefully covering them afterwards with carth, and then re-enter the house singing.
About this time also the girls of the family go to a potter's yard and mark his wheel with red powder and throw rice on it. The potter gives them some pots, which they bring
back to the booth and place near the idol of Gaņeśa. Wedding When the actual wedding day arrives, the family goddess day.
is worshipped, and fourteen girls are fed. The potter is again visited, and in exchange for a present of some thrce pounds of wheat, some dates and a cocoa-nut he provides four waterpots. Either the bride or the bridegroom is now seated in the booth, and 'lucky'women come and either bathe them or else content themselves with at least bathing a toe. The all-important aunt now comes forward and ties a silver ring where the iron one had bcen in the boy's hair, and the maternal uncle gives some money to the lad and lifts him down from the stool.
The bridegroom is then dressed in his most magnifi. cent clothes, and, carrying a cocoa-nut in his hand, goes on horseback in procession towards the bride's house, but is met half-way by a procession from thence.
The actual marriage ceremony takes place after sunset, and is the occasion for some mild horse-play. The bride's sister, for instance, goes out to meet the bridegroom's procession, bearing a water-pot and a cocoa-nut. She makes the auspicious mark on the forehead of the bridegroom and then pinches his nose, and the groom's party put some rupees in the water.pot. Some one then lifts the bridegroom down from his horse, and the lad raises the garlands from the doorway and passes in.
