What it does
To protect a marriage bond and the departing bride from negative energy.
Where
Gathbandhan knot and the bride's knot
When
At the wedding and at vidai
Samagri used
See every other use of:
Explanation and notes
No gathbandhan has ever been tied without yellow mustard. At vidai it protects the bride as she passes rivers, drains, deities, hills and mountains, so that no spirit or negative energy can affect her.
Locates bones and other shalya (harmful objects) buried in a plot. A dowsing rod or pendulum turning anti-clockwise over a spot, or the breath (swar) shifting into sushumna while standing there, confirms that something negative is buried at that point.
An ashtang nimitta method that reads where on the body the person asking about a plot feels itching. The spot tells whether the buried bone is of an animal or a human, male or female, and which animal.
A bone buried in a plot is the biggest land defect (shalya). It changes the chemistry of the surrounding soil, becomes a home for spirits and slowly destroys the peace, health and business of whoever builds there.
The full purification done where a bone has been dug out, the land's equivalent of the rites after a death: vastu registry with five coconuts, removal of the affected soil, agni sanskar with mango wood, water, gomutra and cow-dung purification, lime and sulphur, a 24-hour lamp and mercury.
When bones remain under a plot, mercury mixed into the soil changes its chemistry and can remove up to 75 percent of their harmful effect, including the spirit trouble attached to them.
If at least 6 ft of soil is filled above the place where a bone lies, even a cremation ground beneath causes no trouble, provided the 16 sanskars of the land are then performed on top.
Besides bones, coal, ash, some animal fossils and kaudi in the ground act as shalya. A furnace (bhatti) left buried under a building ruins the family and the business, and kaudi must never be buried, although gomti chakra can be.
The corners of a plot are its biggest sources of energy, and energy flows diagonally from corner to corner through the brahmasthan like a highway. Piling or filling a huge mass over a whole corner zone creates a serious defect.