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buy off their rights over the bride. The brother then asks the bride to join her palms and make a hollow. He then fills the hollow of her palm with the parched grain and pours clarified butter on it and asks her to offer it to each Deva three times. This offering is called Avadana. While the bride is making this Avadana to the Deva the brother of the bride utters a statement which is very significant. He says “This girl is making this Avadana to Aryaman Deva through Agni. Aryaman should therefore relinquish his right over the girl and should not disturb the possession of the bridegroom”. Separate Avadanas are made by the bride to the other two Devas and in their case also the brother alters the same formula. After the Avadan follows the Pradakshana round the Agni which is called SAPTAPADI after which the marriage of the bride and bridegroom becomes complete valid and good. All this of course is very illuminating and throw a flood of light on the utter subjection of the Aryans to the Devas and moral degradation of Devas as well as of the Aryans.
Lawyers know that Saptapadi is the most essential ceremony in a Hindu marriage and that without it there is no marriage at Law. But very few know why Saptapadi has so great an importance. The reason is quite obvious. It is a test whether the Deva who had his right of prelibation over the bride was satisfied with the Avadana and was prepared to release her. If the Deva allowed the bridegroom to take the bride away with him up to a distance covered by the Saptapadi it raised an irrebutable presumption that the Deva was satisfied with the compensation and that his right was extinguished and the girl was free to be the wife of another. The Saptapadi cannot have any other meaning. The fact that Saptapadi is necessary in every marriage shows how universally prevalent this kind of immorality had been among the Devas and the Aryans.
This survey cannot be complete without separate reference to the morals of Krishna. Since the beginning of Kali Yuga which is the same thing is associated with his death his morals became of considerable importance. How do the morals of Krishna compare with those of the others? Full details are given in another place about the sort of life Krishna led. To that I will add here a few. Krishna belonged to the Vrasni (Yadava family). The Yadavas were polygamous. The Yadava Kings are reported to have innumerable wives and innumerable sons— a stain from which Krishna himself was not free. But this Yadava family and Krishna’s own house was not free from the stain of parental incest. The case of a father marrying daughter is reported by the Matsya Purana to have occurred in the Yadav family. According to Matsya Purana, King Taittiri an ancestor of Krishna married his own