﻿298 ON THE RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES 



reach the abode of my lord." She sits down on the 

 edge ot" the mat, and the bridegroom offers six ob- 

 lations of claritied butter, reciting the following 

 prayers, while the bride touch"s his shoulder with her 

 right hand. I. " May fire come first among the 

 gods ; may it rescue her offspring from the fetters 

 of death; may V^run'a king [of waters] grant 

 that this woman should never bemoan a calamity be- 

 fallen her children. '2. ]\Iay the domestic perpetual 

 fire guard her ; may it render her progeny long- 

 lived ; may she never be widowed ; may she be mo- 

 ther of surviving children ; may she experience the 

 joy of having male offspring. 3. ^lay heaven pro- 

 tect thy back ; may air, and the two sons of Aswi- 

 m protect thy tliighs ; may the sun protect thy chil- 

 dren while sucking thy breast; and Vrihaspati 

 protect them until they wear clothes, and afterwards 

 may the assembled gods protect them. 4. ]!vlay no 

 lamentation arise at night in thy abode; n^.ay crying 

 women enter other houses than thine ; may thou 

 never admit sorrow to thy breast ; may thou prosper 

 in thy husband's house, blest \\\\X\ his survival, and 

 viewing cheerFul children. 5. I lilt barrenness, the 

 death of chilrlren, sin, and every other evil, as I 

 would lift a chaplet off thy liead, and I consign the 

 fetters [of premature death] to thy foes. 6. ]\Iay 

 death depart from miC, and immortality come ; may 

 (Yama) the child of the sun, render me fearless. 

 Death ! follow a different path from that by m hich 

 we prv>cced, and from that which the gods travel. 

 To thee who seest and who hearest, 1 call, saying, 

 hurt notour offspring, nor our progenitors : and may 

 this oblation be ethcacious." The bridegroom then 

 presents obrations, naming the three worlds, sepa- 

 rately and conjointly, and oticrs either four or five 

 oblations to fire and to the moon. The bride and 

 bridegroom then rise up, and he passes from her left 

 side to her right, and makes her join her hands in a 



hollow form. 



The 



