Marriage

Marriage... Can anyone define this ? Some people say its a way of match making by god. Some say its bond that two people promise to share for their entire life and coming seven lives. Some say the life has become meaning full after marriage and some say life has no meaning after marriage. I don't know what is true and what is not. During a cousin marriage I happened to witness a very meaning full preaching by our kula purohit. The occasion was a ceremony called hennoppisuvadu, meaning handing over the daughter to the groom.  Below is a brief description of an hour long preaching.

This story is about the existence of evil. In Satya yuga two powerful group of people  existed in two different parts. That is deva's the people known for good were in devaloka and asuras the people known for evil deeds  were in patala(beneath earth ). There was a difference of one loka  that is bhooloka between evil and good. The next yuga is Tretayuga. The time of Lord Rama and Ravana. The distance between good and bad was a sea. The next yuga is dwapara yuga. In this yuga the good and bad were in one family itself. Kauravas were known for evil deeds and Pandavas were known for there good deeds. Both Pandavas and Kauravas belonged to same kuru kula. This explains that the distance between good and evil has reduced as time progressed . The current Yuga is called Kaliyuga where the distance has reduced so much that both good and evil reside inside the same person. One may be good at this moment and turn in to Evil in the next moment. So it all depends on what quality one nurtures and develops . since both good and evil reside inside same person, its up to them to choose the path they want to live .

The next story is about lord Shiva. Why he is called Mahadev ?
Once Devas and Asuras decided to do Samudra Manthan  . They used holy Mandar Parvat (hill) as the churn and vasuki the king of snakes as the roap. They started churning the kshirasagara (the ocean of milk) and lot of good things appeared like pearls, kaamdhenu etc. The deadliest karkotaka poison also appeared , both Devas and Asuras feared death and started running away. Then lord Shiva assured them that he will help them and drank that poison. Then Goddess Gauri pressed Shiva's neck and stooped the poison then poison started coming out from mouth and lord Vishnu closed his mouth and the poison stayed in neck and became blue. So he got a name Neelakanta . Since Shiva solved the problems of gods he is been called god of gods I.e Mahadev.

This event was the highlight of the marriage as far as I was concerned