Newari Wedding Series

Weddings are emotional roller coaster ride to both of the families; the groom’s side and the bride’s side. Weddings in Newar communities are filled with rituals and traditions that carries cultural, religious, logical and emotional values. This collection named “Newari Wedding series” has four different oil painting and acrylic paintings by artists “Kesar Man chitrakar” and “krishna bajracharya”. These Paintings of Kesar Man Chitrakar, and Krishna Bajracharya depicts few of the traditions that has been carried along in newari wedding rituals. 

These paintings are of different sizes and carries it’s own specific values.

Newari Wedding rituals performed.

The painting by Krishna Bajracharya (in the first) is mixture of three main rituals of the wedding.The painting shows the janti arrived by the door of the groom’s house, the ritual of welcoming the bride inside of home after the puja and offering her key of the home, and  rice wine serving to the relatives.

1. The newly wed along with the Janti has arrived by the entrance of home after marriage ceremony is done in the bride’s home.
2. The Groom’s family (most specifically groom’s mother) performs a small puja at the door to protect the newly wed from negativities and then welcomes the bride in home by offering her the key of the door.
3. Another scene in the same shows the rice wine serving ceremony where the new bride offers and serves rice wine to the relatives and guests.

During pujas, first the holy water are sprinkled, followed by Arati and Tika; logically the holy water helps wash away the dirts, Arati are cotton balls or cloths lit in fire which helps kills the bacterias and traditionally Tikas were made up of ingredients like saffron, red sandal powder, turmeric, lime etcs which promotes healthy hormones in an individuals body, thus presenting health and happiness. Mother-in-law offering the key represents that the bride is now counted as new member of the family having her right in that particular home, Bride offering to share the key represents her respect and appreciation towards new family members, Both of them entering the home holding the key together represents that they will equally share all the happiness and sadness of the home from on wards.

Newari Wedding Ritual

In the third painting, the bride and the groom is being worshipped by groom’s mother as a part of welcoming the bride into the new home. The main highlight of this painting is, the bride and the groom’s heads are asked to be joined and the prayers are done in the hopes that the bride and groom continues to live together through every happiness and sadness. Performing this ritual have believes that doing so, the two people connect spiritually and emotionally which helps them understand each other deeply. While performing this ritual; flowers petals, potay coins, golchamari and such other auspicious items are filled in the mana, then the mana is taken to touch the knees and shoulders of both the bride and groom and then the fillings are poured above the couple’s head and it is done three times. The sayapatri flower’s smells helps in hormonal balance, coins and the mana helps the body attract good energies from the metals and potay and gochamari helps in blocking the negative energies from the same. The painting also shows, sukunda; one of most needed metal item while performing any pujas, and “NAKHAYA SINAMU” which means mirror and Sindur box of the bride.

Newari Bride serving rice wine.

In the fourth painting, a group of guests are being served with meal, this feast is mainly called “laptey voi” in newari community. “laptey voi” is a feast served to people where the people are seated on sukul and food is served on banana leaves made plates. The newari meal has foods like chiura (beaten rice), vatmas sadheko (black-soybean with spices and garlic), tama-bodi tarkari (beans and dried bamboo curry), newari achar (sesame dressing garden salad), green spinach, and many more veg and non veg items. The meal is served along with rice wine and curd at the end to make the meal filled with a balanced diet. In this painting, the bride is serving rice wine to the guests, also known as “aila” in newari language. Rice wine is served as a drink and also as a sagun in newar communities as it contains fibers, 10 amino acids, probiotics and anti-oxidants. Aila or rice wine is served in mud cups which promotes earthly energies within the body. Serving rice wine is considered as wishing for happy balanced meal and life. This painting shows the people adoring the new bride and happily accepting foods served by her. Alongside, other men and women are also seen serving and helping with the feast to the guests.