According to custom the bridegroom should go to the bride’s house to be married, but if it is more convenient to have the wedding at the bridegroom’s town, the bride goes there to a temporary house taken by her father, and then the bridegroom proceeds to a temple with his party and is welcomed as if he had arrived on completion of a journey. Mr. Gupte thus describes the reception of the bride when she has come to be married: “But there comes an urgent telegram. The bride and her mother are expected and information is given to the bridegroom’s father. In all haste preparations are made to give her a grand and suitable reception. Oh, the flutter among the girls assembled in the house of the bridegroom from all quarters. Every one is dressed in her best and is trying to be the foremost in welcoming the new bride, the Goddess Lakshmi. The numerous maidservants of the house want to prostrate themselves before their future queen on the Sūna or borderland of the city, which is of course the railway station. Musicians have been already despatched and the platform is full of gaily dressed girls. The train arrives, the party assemble at the waiting-room, a maidservant waves rice and water to ‘take off’ the effects of evil eyes and they start amid admiring eyes of the passengers and onlookers. As soon as the bride reaches her father’s temporary residence another girl waves rice and water and throws it away. The girls of the bridegroom’s house run home and come back again with a Kalash (water-pot) full of water, with its mouth covered with mango-leaves and topped over with a cocoanut and a large tray of sugar. This is called Sakhar pāni, sugar and water, the first to wash the mouth with and the second to sweeten it. The girls have by this time all gathered round the bride and are busy cheering her up with encouraging remarks: ‘Oh, she is a Rati, the goddess of beauty,’ says one, and another, ‘How delicate,’ ‘What a fine nose’ from a third, and ‘Look at her eyes’ from a fourth. All complimentary and comforting. ‘We are glad it is our house you are coming to,’ says a sister-in-law in prospect. ‘We are happy you are going to be our mālikin (mistress),’ adds a maidservant. As soon as the elder ladies have completed their courteous inquiries pān-supāri and attar are distributed and the party returns home. But on arrival the girls gather round the bridegroom to tease him. ‘Oh, you Sudhārak (reformer),’ ‘Oh, you Sāhib (European), you have selected your bride.’ ‘You have seen her before marriage. You have broken the rule of the society. You ought to be excommunicated.’ ‘But,’ says another, ‘he will now have no time to speak to us. His Rati (goddess of beauty) and he! The Sāhib and the Memsāhib! We shall all be forgotten now. Who cares for sisters and cousins in these days of civilisation?’ But all these little jokes of the little girls are meant as congratulations to him for having secured a good girl.” At a wedding among the highest families such as is described here, the bridegroom is presented with drinking cups and plates, trays for holding sandalwood paste, betel-leaf and an incense-burner, all in solid silver to the value of about Rs. 1000; water-pots and cooking vessels and a small bath in German silver costing Rs. 300 to Rs. 400; and a set of brass vessels.[3]
Gujarati girls doing figures with strings and sticks
2. General Customs
The Prabhus wear the sacred thread. In Bombay boys receive it a short time before their marriage without the ceremonies which form part of the regular Brāhman investiture. On the fifth day after the birth of a child, the sword and also pens, paper and ink are worshipped, the sword being the symbol of their Kshatriya origin and the pens, paper and ink of their present occupation of clerks.[4] The funeral ceremonies, Mr. Enthoven writes, are performed during the first thirteen days after death. Oblations of rice are offered every day, in consequence of which the soul of the dead attains a spiritual body, limb by limb, till on the thirteenth day it is enabled to start on its journey. In twelve months the journey ends, and a shrāddh ceremony is performed on an extensive scale on the anniversary of the death. Most of the Prabhus are in Government service and others are landowners. In the Bombay Presidency[5] they had at first almost a monopoly of Government service as English writers, and the term Prabhu was commonly employed to denote a clerk of any caste who could write English. Both men and women of the caste are generally of a fair complexion, resembling the Marātha Brāhmans. The taste of the women in dress is proverbial, and when a Sunār, Sutār or Kasār woman has dressed herself in her best for some family festival, she will ask her friends, ‘Prabhuin disto,’ or ‘Do I look like a Prabhu?’
[1] Pamphlet published in connection with the Ethnographic Survey.
[2] A Prabhu Marriage, p. 3 et seq.
[3] A Prabhu Marriage, pp. 26–27.
[4] Bombay Ethnographic Survey, art. Prabhu.