7. Mock-marriage: Ihi.

The Newar samskara s in Bhaktapur are for the most part closely modeled on the traditional Hindu samskara s. The most dramatic exception is the Ihi , the mock marriage ceremony for girls.^[19] The implications of the Ihi require major changes in traditional menarche rites, and some changes m the traditional "true" marriage.^[20]Ihi and the related modified menarche and marriage rites were traditionally not done by the Rajopadhyaya Brahmans,^[21] nor, for different reasons, by the unclean thar s from level XIV, that is, the Nae, and below. "Ihi " is an old Newari word for marriage, but it is now used only for the mock-marriage, not the "true" marriage, the Byaha .^[22] The Ihi samskara must be done before the onset of menstruation, and can take place at any time between, approximately, five and eleven years of age. At the core of the Ihi is a traditional Hindu ceremony of marriage, but the spouse is

Visnu/Narayana^[*] .^[23] The premenstrual virgin girl is given in marriage to the deity as a gift or offering in the traditional Hindu marriage act called kanya dana , "the giving of a virgin daughter." Because of this prior gift in the Newar mock-marriage, the kanya dana segment of the marriage ceremony is, in contrast to traditional South Asian practice, omitted in Bhaktapur's true marriage ceremony.

The legends told to explain the Ihi ceremony emphasize one of its central implications. Parvati was the daughter of Himavan, the deity of the Himalayas. When she was to be married to Siva, Himavan gave Nepal (that is, the present Kathmandu Valley) to her as her dowry. One day as Parvati was walking through the Valley she heard an old woman crying. Parvati asked her why she was crying. "My husband is dead. A husband is necessary for a woman; without a husband a woman's life is terrible." Parvati pitied her and asked Siva for a boon. "Can you do something for the women of my natal home so that they will not become widows?" Siva answered, "Narayana^[*] and I will arrange it so that there will no longer be any widows in Nepal." Thus the Newars were given the Ihi ceremony. Narayana^[*] was the groom, and Siva the witness.

The legend not only emphasizes a maneuver for avoiding the ritual disabilities of widowhood but places the scene in the setting of Parvati's natal home, her tha: che(n) , the setting where a woman is a relatively indulged child and daughter, rather than being in the greatly contrasting condition of wife and mother in the home of her husband's family and m the circle of his phuki . The women of "Nepal," that is, the Newar women of the Kathmandu Valley, are Parvati's sisters, not her sisters-in-law.

The Ihi ceremony is, as a marriage had to be in Hindu tradition, a premenarche marriage. This means that the second marriage, the one to a mortal, can be delayed as all second marriages can, until after menarche—often long after it. Thus both the necessity of child marriage^[24] and the full force of widow disability are ameliorated by the invention of this Newar samskara . The Ihi ceremony is, as we shall see, in some aspects of its form as well as in its legendary intent, somewhat subversive of the Hindu patriarchal and hierarchical principles that are central to other samskara s.

Ihi ceremonies involve a group of girls, often a large group. There are several Ihi ceremonies in Bhaktapur during the course of a year. Each is sponsored by a well-to-do man who has a (biological or classificatory) daughter, granddaughter, or younger sister to be given the samskara .^[25] The sponsor will gain religious merit and social prestige through his sponsorship. Traditionally sponsors were Chathariya and Pa(n)cthariya, but in recent years Brahmans and Jyapus (the latter made relatively wealthy through land reforms and beginning to follow upper-status religious practices) have also become sponsors. The exact range of thar s taking part in a particular ceremony is determined m part by the status level of the sponsor; thus the lower-level clean thar s are more likely to be found at a Jyapu-sponsored ceremony than at a Brahman-sponsored one.

In the days preceding the Ihi ceremony each girl who is to take part receives invitations from her tha:thiti (the kin acquired through out-marriages of the phuki women) and from her paju 's (mother's brother) households in

Bhaktapur—and sometimes in nearby towns—to visit them. She spends several days in these visits and is offered swaga(n) and food in each household. On the day before the main Ihi ceremony there are various preliminary activities. During the day the main Acaju priest who will loin with other priests in the ceremonies sacrifices a goat at the sponsor's local areal Ganesa^[*] shrine, and then visits each of the city's nine mandalic^[*]pitha s to make offerings of samhae and alcoholic spirits to the goddesses. He begins, as is always the case in such sequential visits, with Brahmani to the east, ending after a circuit of the periphery in a clockwise direction with Tripurasundari at the center. He worships, making the proper sacrificial offerings, at each pitha in turn. While there are visits to the particular mandalic areal pitha of phuki groups in the course of most of that phuki 's samskara s, this movement to all the pitha s reflects the amalgamation of the Ihi girls into a spatially and socially heterogeneous and at the same time integrated group.

During this preliminary day—as they would before any major samskara —the members of each involved household will have preparatory purification ceremonies, and those families with Aga(n) deities will make offerings of samhae to them. In the latter part of the day before the ceremony the sponsoring household, the one where the ceremony is to take place, performs a Duso (or Duswa ), "a looking in" ceremony, that is, a preparation for the visit of the deity. This is thought of as a notice and "invitation" to the deity to attend the ceremonies. This ceremony is done by Brahmans for all their own major auspicious samskara s, but by other thar s only m this preparation by the sponsor of the Ihi ceremony. The Duso begins when the main Brahman purohita (there are usually two or three Brahmans involved in the ceremony), and the two auxiliary priests (a Tini and a Josi), the sponsor of the Ihi , and, often, other senior males of his household, go in a procession accompanied by musicians to a location near the Jyatha Ganesa^[*] shrine in the potter's quarter, where a purified puja area is prepared. A member of the Kumha: (potter) thar , accompanied by members of the procession, brings black clay to the ritual area. The black clay is formed into a ball, the "All(n) God," said to represent "Siva and all the (benign) gods." The Ali(n) God is now worshiped along with a clay pot, a Brahmakalasa , on which there is an image of Brahma, representing the trimurti —Brahma, Siva, and Visnu^[*] . Another piece of black clay is set aside to represent Ganesa^[*] in the next day's ceremony.^[26] Carrying the Ali(n) God, the Brahmakalasa, and the clay that will represent Ganesa^[*] , the group returns to the house of the sponsor in a procession and is met at the house's pikha lakhu by the wife of the main purohita . She now performs a laskusa —a formal ceremony greeting the deities and the members of the procession and chasing off evil influences in a formal exorcism, followed by her leading the central participants into a sacred area, in this case the area in the house where the formal ceremonies will take place.^[27] Now the main purohita goes through the proceedings for ritually "establishing" (sthapana ) the Ali(n) God.

The girls who are to have the ceremony the next day are waiting at the house, and are each attended by at least one representive, (either male or female) of their phuki . The Ihi girls, are dressed in red, sometimes in a special red-and-yellow Ihi dress resembling a traditional marriage dress. One girl—

usually the sponsor's daughter, or perhaps niece or granddaughter—is chosen as the naki(n) , the "leader of the brides." A complex series of events follows, many of which mimic procedures from Brahmanical marriage ceremonies, which indicate in various ways the binding together of each girl with her divine groom and the divine witness.

These ceremonies are followed by a feast for the Ihi girls at the sponsor's house in which boiled rice, here called duso Ja prepared by the wives of the Brahman purohita s who are officiating at the ceremony, is eaten. This partaking by a group of mixed phuki s, thars, and macrostatus levels of boiled rice is unique. In other feasts where there are representatives of non-phuki groups, and above all, members of other thar s it is essential that boiled rice not be served—baji , beaten fried rice being served instead. Nevertheless, this apparent opposition to ordinary proper procedures is limited. First, the girls are not yet full members of their thar s. Second, the girls are separated into "eating groups" by floor space—so that some group separation is maintained. As in all ritual feasts, the leftover food is taken to the areal crossroads deity, the chwasa , and discarded. At the end of the ceremony the girls return to their homes. They are now considered to be in a state of purity. They must now fast until the next day.

The main events occur on the next day in an elaborate sequence requiring the services of Brahman, Josi, Tini, and Acaju priests. In the events of the day, as in those on the preliminary day, the Ihi mirrors many of the elements of South Asian upper-status traditional true marriage ceremonies, as well as having its unique aspects. The ceremony has three astrologically determined sait s, indicating the core transformative elements. This is the time for the preparatory purification by a nauni ;^[28] for the application of bhuisinha(n) , orange-red pigment, to the parting of the girl's hair;^[29] and for the presentation of the girls as gifts of a virgin, a kanya dana , to the deity.

In the course of the day's preparatory phases the Acaju does a puja called desa bali ,^[30] which is an offering to the gods of all the Tantric temples in the city, represented in the puja by grains of polished rice. There is nothing like this in ordinary samskara s.

The main images at the wedding—provided separately for each girl—are the bya (in Nepali, bel ) which is the fruit of the Bel plant (Aegle marmelos ), and a small gold image (or flat piece of gold with an image engraved on it). The bya represents Siva; the image represents Visnu/Narayana^[*] . Each girl is accompanied by her father (or, if he is not available, an elder brother or one of her father's brothers). He will offer her as a kanya dana to Visnu/Narayana^[*] . At the proper sait for the kanya dana each girl stands with her hand linked to her male donor's and the girl's mother (or, if necessary, a surrogate) pours ritually pure water and milk over their Joined hands. The donor says his name and (in the case of the upper-level thar s) the name of his gotra , his daughter's name, and the name of his father and grandfather. The daughter is to be presented "in the name of" these lineage members. At the exact astrological time—called out by a Josi—the donor gives his daughter to the god as manifested by pressing her thumb against the golden image. The image is held against the bya representing Siva as the witness to the marriage. The focal marriage is followed by a sequence of closing ceremonies, and ends with a supper of rich, sweet foods.

Many girls customarily establish bonds of fictive kinship with other girls during the Ihi ceremony by exchanging sinha(n) pigment and kisali , small pots containing husked rice grains. The pots and the rice are then used in offerings to a ceremonial sacrificial fire that had been made and worshiped at the beginning of the Ihi sequence by the attending priests. The bond friend or fictive sister is called a twae (chap. 6). During later life two young women may make themselves twae s in special ceremonies as men do, but the Ihi is the setting in which young girls characteristically form these bonds. It is noteworthy that in congruence with other implications of the Ihi ceremony, twae relations extend kinship beyond the phuki , and frequently beyond the thar , and, sometimes, even beyond the two girls' status levels.

The Ihi ceremony stands in a coherent contrast to the other city samskara s—all others (except the old-age ceremonies) variants of traditional Hindu rites of passage. In its main import it rationalizes an avoidance of premenarche marriages and of certain aspects, at least, of the stigmatization and disabling of widows in a society where, in consonance with its Himalayan roots, the status of women had long been relatively less constrained than m Indo-Nepalese and Indian Hindu societies. In keeping with its legendary reference to the Newar's homeland as Parvati's natal home and to Parvati as its tutelary goddess, the Ihi ceremony in itself has elements suggesting social integration blurring the central patriarchal order and differentiation of the phuki and its satellite alliances—an order emphasized or taken for granted in other samskara s. Such gestures of blurring of patriarchal order are the joining together m one ceremony of members of different phuki s, thar s, and status levels, the worship of all the city Tantric shrines and all the mandalic^[*]pitha s in concert—in a representation of, among other things, all the city's lineages—and the creation of trans-familial, and sometimes trans-status-level fictive sororal bonds. These gestures are made within the context of a traditional Hindu marriage ceremony. in Michael Allen's epitome, "the mock marriages may be said to constitute a formal show of commitment to orthodoxy in Brahman dominated communities within which key values are still strongly unorthodox—especially as regards the status of women and female sexuality and reproductivity" (1982, 203).

It is usually said that a Hindu boys' transition to full adult "ritual" status begins after Upanayana —which means in Bhaktapur his Kaeta Puja —while a girl's transition begins after her marriage. Thus, for example, in traditional South Asia "the death of a boy after his Upanayana entails full fledged defilement, but a girl before her marriage is still regarded as a child and her death causes defilement for a period of three days only" (Pandey 1969, 258). The transformation made by marriage in a Newar girl's ritual life stage is more complex, for she has two marriages. After the first one, the Ihi , she is still a full member of her natal family, while the second one, her "real" marriage, brings membership in a new, a conjugal family.

In some ways the Ihi ceremony does have the same implications for a girl that the KaetaPuja has for a boy. After her Ihi ceremony, the girl would receive full adult death rites if she were to die. She is now said to belong fully to her thar

and to be responsible for not becoming polluted by sharing vulnerable foods with children of lower thar s and for purificatory cleaning before eating. For middle-level thar s after Ihi a girl is presented to her phuki lineage deity, the Digu God, as a sort of initiation into the phuki at a special ceremony of initiation held at the time of the following Dewali Digu Puja^[31] (chap. 9).

While girls are notionally said to be fully responsible after the Ihi , many of them are still very young, and in fact it is at the time of their menarche ceremony that they are really expected to be able to understand and follow the thar rules for separation and purity, and it is that samskara that signals a girl's passing beyond some aspects, at least, of childish lack of responsibility.