Rite 19 · After the wedding
Isht Devta's blessing
The couple's first act together — to seek their family deity's blessing. Every house has its own Isht Devta and its own shrine, in whatever form it comes; for us, that is Jageshwar Dham, the great Shiva temple of these hills.
The whole weddingIsht Devta · इष्ट देवता
Rite 19 of 19Known locally as
Isht Devta
/ isht de·v·ta / इष्ट देवता
the family deity — the god a family holds as its own; the newly-weds seek their first blessing at its shrine — for us, that is Jageshwar.
What it is
Soon after the wedding, the newly-weds go together to their Isht Devta — the family's own deity — to ask a blessing on the life ahead. The form varies from house to house; ours is Jageshwar Dham, the thousand-year-old grove of stone Shiva temples that is the great shrine of Kumaon, and the god we have always held as our own.
Why it's done
To begin a marriage at the feet of the family's god is, here, almost a rule — wherever you are, you go to your Isht Devta and bow together before life proper begins. For us that is Shiva at Jageshwar, one of the oldest living temples in the Himalaya — a blessing few weddings anywhere can claim.
How it unfolds
Still in their wedding finery, the couple offer prayers and a small puja at the family shrine, and — for us — walk the old deodar grove of Jageshwar together.
Who needs to be there
The couple, often with close family.
What's special — and how we keep it
Where another family would go to their own Isht Devta's shrine, ours is Jageshwar itself. We remember it as the quiet after the storm — just the two of them, and a thousand years of stone.
Her side, and his
The bride's side
For the first time she prays not as her family's daughter but as a wife.
The groom's side
And he beside her as a husband — the two no longer of separate sides, but simply one.
Pandit ji, the mantra & the song Draft
Pandit ji's part
The temple Pandit ji receives their first prayer and aarti together as a married pair.
In photographs
9 frames from this rite, in the order they happened.
Photographs in association with Balaji Photographer — a studio out of Barechhina, on the Almora–Pithoragarh highway.