#indopresentism

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Silk Smitha turns 65, celebrates with family and announces new memoir

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tw: suicide, self-harm

Silk Smitha - Wikipedia

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Gandharva marriage

A gandharva marriage is one contracted by mutual consent and without formal rituals. Gandharvas are mentioned extensively in the epic Mahabharata as associated with the devas (as dancers and singers) and with the yakshas, as formidable warriors.

In Mahabharata, one of two major epics of Hindus, Rishi Kanva, the foster father of Shakuntala, recommends Gandharva marriage with the statement “The marriage of a desiring woman with a desiring man, without religious ceremonies, is the best marriage.”[9] Elsewhere in Mahabharata (iii:190.36), the epic says “No man any longer asks for the daughter, nor does a father give away his daughter, they (women) find the man for themselves.”[10]

Same-sex marriage between two gay men or two lesbians was classified under the "gandharva" or celestial variety – "a union of love and cohabitation, without the need for parental approval." Gandharva marriages are often celebrated with symbolic Hindu rituals such as an exchange of garlands or walking around a fire together. Hindu sacred texts debate the status of Gandharva marriage; while it has a lower status in some texts, others consider it to be a superior form. For example, the fourth-century Kamasutra (the world’s first sex treatise), which is a sacred text, states that gandharva is the best form of marriage because it is based on mutual attraction (anuraga).