INVOKING THE GODS 219
whole time, and are accompanied by musical instruments.
After the nalangu is over the women array the young couple in new clothes, as has already been described in the chapter
on the upanayana. The evening of the same day, at the moment when the lamps are being lighted, the guests
return to assist at the following ceremony:— The married women, singing all the time, take a wooden cylinder which they cover with lime and then paint with red longitudinal stripes. On this they tie small twigs of the mango-tree.
They next sprinkle a great quantity of powdered saffron over the cylinder, which they immediately afterwards dip into a new earthen vessel. This they carry with much solemnity, singing the while, to the centre of the pandal, where they offer it a sacrifice of incense, and offer some betel for neiveddya. Every person present makes a profound obeisance to the vessel. No other saffron but what is thus consecrated is used during the whole ceremony.
All these proceedings are merely preparatory to the marriage ceremony itself, which lasts for five days.
The first day is called muhurta, that is to say, the great day, or the happy and auspicious day. It is on this day that the most important and solemn ceremonies take place.
The head of the family goes out early to invite his guests, while the women busy themselves with purifying the house
and the pandal, which they decorate all round with wreaths of mango leaves. The guests having arrived stand in a row, and first adorn their foreheads with akshatas and sandalwood. They next anoint their heads with the oil of sesamum which is provided for them, and then they go and
perform their ablutions. On their return the purohita performs the sam-kalpa and invokes all their gods, beginning with Brahmaj " Vishnu, Rudra, Devendra, and then the twelve Adityas, the eight Vasus, the nine Brahmas, the eleven Rudras, the Gandharvas, the Siddhas, the Saddhyas, the Naradas, the seven great Penitents, the nine planets;
in fact, every deity whose name occurs " to his memory. With low obeisance he invites them all to come to the
marriage-feast, makes many flattering speeches to them, and begs them to remain under the pandal, and to preside over the ceremony during the five days that it lasts.