Brahman compound
Compounds are arranged in a pattern according to the suraj
mandal, or the "circle of the sun." The sun is worshipped by
Maithil Brahmans as the god Surya. The sun moves in an east-to-west
direction across the sky each day.
Life in the courtyard is not unlike living in a temple. For
Brahmans, almost all significant religious acts take place in the
family compound. Here the orthodox Brahman rises before sunrise and
begins several hours of worship defined by Vedic-derived traditions
collectively referred to as karmakanda. All major life-cycle rites,
known as samskaras, particularly marriage (vivaha) and boy’s
sacred thread ceremony (upnayana) are conducted in the
courtyard. When eleven Brahmans must be feasted following each rite,
they are seated in rank order beginning nearest the tulsi tree in a
rectangle around the courtyard. Thus, the four-house compound of a
typical rural village, arranged on an east-west axis with the mandap
at the center, is the domestic temple as well as the home of Maithil
Brahman families.
You arrive first at the purbariya ghar (eastern house), the
men’s house, whose front verandah is the place for connecting with
the rest of the village and the world. Here the men receive guests,
deal with village business, share the convivial and ubiquitous pan
with guests of high rank, while the wife sends out trays of tea but
rarely herself appears from the courtyard.
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The purbariya ghar of a compound in
Jitwarpur,
Dist. Madhubani |
The shrine of Kul Devi and other family deities is in the
gosaun ghar, opening eastward like every temple onto the compound.
The cooking hearth is usually on the inner verandah of this
building.
The center of the courtyard contains a covered, raised platform, the
mandap, whose ritual function is to protect the Vedic fire
sacrifice from pollution, but whose everyday practical uses during
extremes of heat and rain are many. You can dry clothes there, store
bags of grain, sleep on hot nights, hide from the sun.
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The mandap in a Jitwarpur compound
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A third house, either in the south or the north, is the kohbara
ghar, the house where daughters of the family will meet their
husbands, and where sons will meet their new wives. Though this
event happens but rarely in a family’s history, and this building in
everyday life serves a wide range of useful functions, it is thought
of and called the kohbara ghar as if every week it was needed
for a bride and groom’s first shy meeting.The northern house is a
ritually unmarked storage and sleeping place.
At marriage the Gosaun Ghar and the Kohbara Ghar are
elevated to their highest ritual status. At the bride's household,
her Kohbara Ghar is where bride and groom will "meet" each
night, called suhag ki raat, or the "night of suhag."
When the bride arrives at the groom's house, the Gosaun Ghar
becomes the most important room. The bride must first be introduced
to Kul Devi before the marriage can be consummated. She
spends her first three nights sleeping in a small, specially
constructed shrine near Kul Devi. This is tapas for the
bride, it is said; the bride's asceticism. Through these three
nights, bride and Kul Devi are coming to know one another;
the bride gives Kul Devi a body, an incarnation, for the
future of the family and of the lineage. Only after these three,
chaste nights do the bride and groom sleep together for the first
time, and that will be in the groom's Kohbara Ghar.
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The gosaun ghar - the wife cooks on the
verandah; the shrine is inside
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