showing the agreement
of the horoscopes of the couple, which are too often made a cloak for
the extortion of large presents. "It very often happens that everything
is amicably settled except the greed of the priest, and he manages to
find out some disagreement between the horoscopes of the marriageable
parties to vent his anger. This trick has been sufficiently exposed,
and the educated portion of this ultra-literary caste have in most
cases discarded horoscopes and planetary conjunctions altogether. Under
these restrictions the only thing the council of astrologers have to
do is to draw up two documents giving diagrams based on the names
of the parties--for names are presumably selected according to the
conjunctions of the stars at birth. But they are often not, and depend
on the liking of the father for a family god, a mythological hero,
a patron or a celebrated ancestor in the case of the boy. In that of
the girl the favourite deity or a character in the most recent fable
or drama the father has just read."

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 Suna 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 t