Kanyakaa Dhaanam

Kanyakaa Dhaanam

We do not gift away our daughters simply like that. No father or brother takes leave of or sends away his daughter or sister with happiness. The Pathos of the Fourth Act of Shakuntalam where Sage Kanva sheds tears of blood while sending Shakuntala to her husband’s place. You have to read it only with a feel that you have your heart turned with a wrench... The Laja Homam just after the marriage where the brides brother fills her hands with puffed paddy to be offered to Agni.. As a prayer of longevity for the bridegroom... I shall try to reproduce the mantras below... It tells a ll.

Laja Homa

After the Kanya-dan, the young bride may feel that both she and her brothers have been born in the same house and both have equal rights for affection and affluence but she is going to another family. To reassure her that she need not feel such separation the brothers give to their sister the Laja (parched rice) for offering in the fire. The idea symbolically is that just as we transplants paddy plants from their original germinating ground to another field to facilitate proper growth and yield of crop, the girls have to be married off to another family just to ensure widespread growth. It is clear from this that the girls cannot remain in their father’s house forever.

By filling the stretched palms of their sister to the full, with Lajas the brothers assure her that whenever she will go from her father’s house to her husband’s house, the brothers will be always there to provide her with whatever she wants. It is the practice in affectionate families that whenever a sister visits she will never go empty handed to her own house. In addition, we can witness this this implied gesture even if the brother is ninety years old and the sister is eighty.

It is with such reassured and happy mind that the bride offers three oblations of the Lajas-parched rice in the fire through her husband and recites the following three

mantras ; —

अर्यम्णं देवं कन्या अग्नियक्षत सनो देवः प्रेतो मुञ्चतु मा पतेः॥

ॐ इयं नार्युपब्रूते लाजानवपन्तिका आयुष्मानस्तु मे पतिरेधन्ता ज्ञातयो मम।

ॐ इमान् लाजानावपाम्यग्नौ अमृद्धिकरणम् तव मम तुभ्यं च संवननं तदग्निरनुमन्यतामियत्।

aryamṇaṁ devaṁ kanyā agniyakṣata sano devaḥ preto muñcatu mā pateeḥ||

om iyaṁ nāryupabrūte lājānavapantikā āyuṣmānastu me patiredhantā jñātayo mama|

om imān lājānāvapāmyagnau amṛddhikaraṇam tava mama tubhyaṁ ca saṁvananaṁ tadagniranumanyatāmiyat|

The first mantra signifies that she is propitiating god Aryma and is bidding adieus to her parents and brothers and with mixed feeling going away from her father’s house to her husband’s house, God Aryma may not ever separate her from her husband

A very lofty idea is enshrined in this mantra-the bride never would entertain even in the remotest corner of her mind the idea of separation from her husband. That is why in Hindu marriage even the idea of divorce is entirely missing. In the second mantra, she seeks the benedictions of her brothers and relatives for the long life of her husband and in turn wishes them all-round prosperity.

In the third mantra addressing her husband she says, “My Lord and husband, by offering the oblations of Lajas in the fire I pray to God that our mutual love should always remain strong and firm There is. a deep significance in the act of the bride in not offering the Lajas herself to the Agni, even though given by her brothers, but she hands it over to the husband to offer the same to the fire. If the wife forms the kernel of the rice, the husband is the outer protective shell, which also carries in its tip the cells for germination, and the kernel separated from the shell cannot grow further, the wife without the presence of the husband has no significance. The vice versa is equally important. Shiva and Shakti cannot remain without the presence of one another. The bride in good faith is requesting the Gods with offer of the puffed rice that her life with her husband should ever be without separation.

In our society, just because the girl goes to the husband’s house she does not lose her hold in the life and love of her parents, brothers and sisters.. No Shubhakaryam or even negative occurrences can and will happen in the household of a brother without the presence of the sister and vice versa. Nothing ever goes on without the presence of Athai and Mama. The son born of the daughter has to pay oblations to the pitrus of three generation of maternal grandparents... on every Amavasya. And in life, can the affection be any less when a ninety year old brother and his eighty eight year sister meet.. Even at that age the brother will be afraid of the sister.

In Kerala apart from Palakkad Iyers who simply follow the Smartha rites of Tamil Iyers, the Nambuthiris, who are the nearest to Indigenous Brahmins of Kerala ( though the traditions is that Parasurama brought them from Andhra) and Pottis, Imbradiris, Bhats, etc who have become a part of Kerala but who have come from Karnataka, all have this Kanyakaadaanam.. Even the Nairs, Thiyyas or Ezhuvas, who form the majority Hindu sections in Kerala, have a ritual where the father of the Bride, holds the hand of the girl and leads her to the spot of marriage(dais) and hands over that hand to the bridegroom and the parents and the sisters of the groom also form part of the ceremony.. And this Kanyakadhanam is not restricted to Tamil Brahmin culture.. The famous statement of Janaka “ Iyam seetha mama suthaa sahadharmacharee thave, prateecha chainaam bhadram te paanim grihneeshwa paaninaa.....” the father giving the hand of the daughter to the bridegroom is an iconic act, of National Import..

Socially, the father handing over the hand of the daughter to the groom is a firm declaration on the fidelity and sacredness of the relations between the father and the mother of the bride first. And vindication of the institution of marriage as such.. Most of the human beings take pride in the identification of the paternal pedigree. As one cans easily identify the mother... and since there were no DNA tests in those days, this ritual was a moment of bliss for the father and the mother of the daughter and the boy. In addition, in Vedic marriages, the presiding preceptors would announce the names of even twenty-one generations of the fathers of the boy and girl at least three times. Nowadays they announce only the names of father, paternal grandfather and the paternal great-grandfather of the groom and the bride.