5. Marriage.
At a Gūjar wedding four plough-yokes are laid out to form a square under the marriage booth, with a copper pot full of water in the centre. At the auspicious moment the bride’s hand is placed on that of the bridegroom, and the two walk seven times round the pot, the bridegroom leading for the first four rounds and the bride for the last three. Widows are allowed to remarry, and, as girls are rather scarce in the caste, a large price is often paid for the widow to her father or guardian, though this is not willingly admitted. As much as Rs. 3000 is recorded to have been paid. A widow marriage is known as Nātra or Pāt. A woman is forbidden to marry any relative of her first husband. When the marriage of a widow is to take place a fee of Rs. 1–4 must be paid to the village proprietor to obtain his consent. The Gūjars of the Bulandshahr District of the United Provinces furnish, Mr. Crooke says,[11] perhaps the only well-established instance of polyandry among the Hindus of the plains. Owing to the scarcity of women in the caste it was customary for the wife of one brother, usually the eldest, to be occasionally at the disposal of other unmarried brothers living in the house. The custom arose owing to the lack of women caused by the prevalence of female infanticide, and now that this has been stopped it is rapidly dying out, while no trace of it is believed to exist in the Central Provinces.
6. Disposal of the dead.
The bodies of unmarried persons are buried, and also of those who die of any epidemic disease. Others are cremated. The funeral of an elderly man of good means and family is an occasion for great display. A large feast is given and the Brāhman priests of the caste go about inviting all the Gūjars to attend. Sometimes the number of guests rises to three or four thousand. At the conclusion of the feast one of the hosts claps his hands and all the guests then get up and immediately depart without ceremony or saying farewell. Such an occasion is known as Gūjarwāda, and the Gūjars often spend as much, or more, on a funeral as on a wedding, in the belief that the outlay is of direct benefit to the dead man’s spirit. This idea is inculcated and diligently fostered by the family priests and those Brāhmans who receive gifts for the use of the dead, the greed of these cormorants being insatiable.
7. Religion.
The household goddess of the caste is known as Kul Devi, the word kul meaning family. To her a platform is erected inside the house, and she must be worshipped by the members of the family alone, no stranger being present. Offerings of cocoanuts, rice, turmeric and flowers are made to her, but no animal sacrifices. When a son of the family dies unmarried, an image of him, known as Mujia, is made on a piece of silver, copper or brass, and is worshipped on Mondays and Fridays during the month of Māgh (January). On one of these days also a feast is given to the caste. Each member of the caste has a guru or spiritual preceptor, who visits him every second or third year and receives a small present of a cocoanut or a piece of cloth. But he does not seem to perform any duties. The guru may belong to any of the religious mendicant castes. A man who is without a guru is known as Nugra and is looked down on. To meet him in the morning is considered unlucky and portends misfortune. Sir C. Elliot[12] characterised the Mundle Gūjars as “A very religious race; they never plough on the new moon nor on the 8th of the month, because it is Krishna’s birthday. Their religious and social head is the Mahant of the Rāmjidās temple at Hoshangābād.” In Nimār many of the Gūjars belong to the Pīrzāda sect, which is a kind of reformed creed, based on a mixture of Hinduism and Islām.