Thirumurai Thirumanam - A complete wedding

Tamil wedding is unique function filled with tradition, embracing rituals and practices mentioned in sacred ancient Tamil literature (roughly 2500+ years ago). Rituals vary from community to community but base remains same. Having said this, many started adding fun events in their wedding now with tinges of the modern era.

This post is about my wedding which I truly & thoroughly enjoyed and I wanted to freeze those moments in words on account of my third wedding anniversary. How different it is from rest of the Tamil wedding? I promise you that I am not going to bore you by explaining Tamil tradition and rituals. Join me and I will take you further.

My dream about my dreamy wedding:

Wedding is the most important event in one’s lifetime. Getting married is the huge phase of anyone’s life and wedding is the celebration of commitment between bride & groom and union of two families. Everyone would have dreamt about their own wedding. How bride/ groom would be, list of events, arrangements, music, dress to the big occasion, food menu and so on. So I too had wishes.

Before revealing those wishes, i would like to remind viewers that I used to do wedding photography (BestFrame Factory- BFF). I had done this passionately for 5 years and covered close to 60 weddings. I had been to different varieties of Tamil weddings, few Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Hindi (Delhi) wedding. So I had seen enough to choose the best from those weddings that suits my interest to have in my D-Day.

To list few of my wishes:

• Reception dress of both Bride and Groom. And I exactly selected what I had in my mind.
• Food menu. I am not a big fan of Buffet and multiple variety dishes. Again this too happened as I wished and food was super hit in my wedding.
• Music at reception event. I even prioritized list of Musical bands and was particular about choice of songs. I will talk about this wish later in the post.
• Honeymoon spots and obviously booked where I wanted to be.
• Fifth, the most important wish. I wanted to have mantras to be translated in Tamil.

The most important wish:

While doing Wedding photography, I would be the first person to enter the function and last to leave. So I follow and capture all nuances of the rituals. Mantras are the most important aspect in any Hindu wedding and all the practices are performed after chanting Mantras in Sanskrit. I never understood meaning of those and none of the family (Bridge & Groom side) tried to ask Priests who conducted wedding. This is not the case with Christian wedding where one can understand the proceedings happening in the church. Once I causally opened conversation with a priest regarding this and he replied me that none asked for it and also time won’t be sufficient to translate each and every mantra in Tamil.

I always wanted to understand idea behind any activity before I do. But this is individual characteristics of mine and I cannot implement this in mega event like wedding according to my whims and fancies where it is union of two families. Even I talked with my school buddy who learnt Vedas in Kanchipuram and now conducting functions with his own team. He was ready to conduct my wedding in both Sanskrit and Tamil (Translation), if I get permission from all family members and allocate time accordingly. He sarcastically replied and it was way before my family started bride search. So that’s the summary of my important wish to translate Mantras in Tamil so that I get the meaning of those rituals before blindly imitating the priest.

Wish comes true:

Quickly fast forwarding scenes to get to the point. Now Bride search got over and fixed the engagement date. I came to know from my MIL that they are planning to have Odhuvar instead of priest to conduct our wedding and it would be on the principle of Thirumurai. That was the first time I heard such words “Odhuvar” and “Thirumurai”. And she added that they are planning to have Thirumurai Katcheri in reception evening by Odhuvar’s musical team. So bride’s family needs our confirmation to go ahead with their plan. This was huge and I was skeptical at beginning that it is not going to work out.

As I said, I covered multiple weddings during my photography days and even in our family side all conducted wedding with Sanskrit Vedic Mantras. It seemed tough to accept this idea and go different from usual route. Then I asked my MIL to brief about Thirumurai and Odhuvar. Thirumurai is bundle of 12 volumes of songs/ hymns penned & composed by various Saivite poets back in 6^th to 11^th century. Odhuvars are trained professional who sings sacred Thirumurai hymns (Predominantly Thevaram hymns) as musical offerings to the lord Shiva. MIL said rituals would be same but without priest and Sanskrit mantras. I thought it would be like reformist wedding and I was completely taken aback with this wonderful idea.

This is exactly my wish which I longed to have in my wedding. I wished for Sanskrit translation but I was given the choice of Thirumurai Mantras. How could I reject this offer? I explained my family and made sure that they nod positive for this idea. I just remembered Rhonda Byrne’s “The secret” which preached that thinking about certain things without negative thoughts would make them achievable in one's life. I thought of convincing both families to have priest of my choice who can translate mantras in Tamil but surprisingly I came to know about Thirumurai Mantras written exclusively in Tamil and my wedding happened following the same.

And regarding the other wish of mine related to musical band, I was not okay with Katcheri. I was so naïve that time and pleaded my wife many times to drop the plan. I used to mock friends who had Katcheri in their wedding and I couldn’t accept the fact of having one in my own wedding. After multiple requests, I couldn’t do much about it and half-heartedly went with the flow as wedding was organised by bride’s side. To my surprise, Thirumurai Katcheri was super hit and I got calls from many well-wishers about this idea of having Thirumurai recital along with Thirukural explaining various gyan about wedding and back stories related to marital life. Unfortunate that we couldn’t enjoy the Katcheri as we were busy on stage and audio recording of this event also got corrupted.

The D-Day:
Here comes the D-Day. The most awaited event of my life and was so excited to experience a complete Thirumurai Tamil wedding first time that too in my own event. I must say, the experience is surreal. Usually marriage scene would be like this. Priest will chant mantras in unknown Sanskrit language and couples would be copying whatever he asked them to do. People around couple would be hysterically doing their activities known only to them and guests will mind their own business till the main event of tying knot, just to bless them with Akshathai. Then few more rituals will be conducted with empty hall as guests would have gone for breakfast.

But in my wedding, guests were glued to their seats to experience the gyan. Wireless microphones were arranged to broadcast the Thirumurai padhigam (song), Thirukural, its explanations and back story if any. The very first time, all rituals made sense. Wedding started off with Prayer, then gyan about importance of holy fire, water in pots, coconuts, mirror, Navadhanyam (nine sacred grains), lamp, lotus, paddy, Thaali, Valmpuri Sangu and Arasan Kol (bamboo stick).

Thirumurai Mantras were recited to invite various gods for specific reasons to follow certain rituals like the one performed with sumangalis, 7 ladies and followed by offerings to parents (Paadha poojai). Then we both took oath to lead healthy marital life following virtue in the presence of gods, parents and well-wishers. Have you ever seen oath taking rituals in a Tamil wedding? Cool, isn’t it? This followed by the much awaited event of tying the holy knot, Ammi medhithal, Metti and other common rituals. Every ritual performed with Thirumurai Mandhiram and Odhuvar explained each and every nuance of the practices and even he explained why bride should sit left to the groom after becoming wife. It was totally informative and thought provoking event.

The End:
Personally, this was dream come true wedding. Thirumurai principles can be followed in any life events right from birth till death. Isn’t it good to learn practices that our ancestors followed since Sangam era and following it in our life time with understandings rather than mimicking unknown practices in unknown language for the sake of doing it? And if you visit Shiva temples in TN, do not forget to meet Odhuvar to learn history about the temple and hymns sung in those temples by Nayanmargal to make your wish come true. Thanks for reading!