Parsi Wedding Rituals
Posted on July 18, 2008 in Art & Culture by Gitanjali
Parsi is a member of a close-knit Zoroastrian community based chiefly in the Indian subcontinent. Parsis are descended from Persian Zoroastrians who immigrated to the Indian subcontinent over 1,000 years ago.
Parsi Marriage
Parsi marriage is referred to as ‘Lagan’ and is celebrated with great zeal and fervour. The traditions and customs observed in the Parsi marriage are pretty different from the traditional Hindu marriage.
Rupia Peravanu
The Parsi marriage rituals start off with the pre-wedding ‘Rupia Peravanu’ ceremony. This is the informal engagement between both the families. Women from the groom’s family pay a visit to the bride and gift her with silver coins and shagun. This ceremony is repeated at the groom’s house as the bride’s family visits them. Following this, Madhavsaro is observed, where the families of the bride and the groom each plant a tree in a pot, individually. This sapling is kept at the entrance of the homes and watered daily till after the eighth day of marriage when it is planted elsewhere.
This ritual is followed by ‘Adarni’, where the groom’s family visits the bride’s place and gifts her clothing and jewelry. The guests are treated with sev and dahi, bananas and boiled eggs. On the eve of the wedding, the ‘Supra nu Murat’ ceremony is observed. This is similar to the ‘haldi’ ceremony in Hindu weddings. The groom and the bride are both applied turmeric paste by five married women. This is followed by Nahan, where the couple takes purifying bath and get ready for the wedding ceremony.
The Wedding
For a Parsi wedding the venue is baug or agiary, the Fire Temple. Here, prior to the groom stepping on the stage, the bride’s mother performs ‘Achumichu’. Here, she holds a tray comprising of a raw egg, rice, supari, dates, coconut and water. She circles these items, except water, seven times around the groom’s head and then, throws these on the floor. The water is thrown on either side. This is repeated by the groom’s mother for the bride. This is followed by ‘Ara Antar’, in which the bride and the groom are seated facing each other, a cloth separating them.
The priest binds the couple with a sacred string seven times. On the seventh round the couple throw rice at each other from above the cloth. Whoever does it first is believed to have an upper hand on the household. The couple then sits beside each other with the seven strands of string binding them. Oil lamps are lighted on each side and the priest begins prayer ceremony. This is followed by shower of rice and rose petals, after which the couple exchanges rings. This is called ‘Chero Bandhvanu’. Next is ‘Haath Borvanu’, in which the bride’s sister puts groom’s hand in a glass of water, spills milk on his shoes and removes the seven strings binding the couple, in lieu of token money.
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