Hindu Housewarming Ceremony: Griha Pravesh

We bought a new house! Hooray. And we happily moved in before my third trimester, and I didn’t even have to lift a box. I’m so happy!

One of the main things people do around the world after they get a new place is to throw a housewarming party! I’m still making the invites for a good ol’ American housewarming. However, there is also a special housewarming ceremony in India too.

Hinduism is rich with ceremonial activities. There is a ceremony for basically anything you might do in life. There are also auspicious dates and times (e.g. super early in the morning) with which to perform these activities, all coordinated around a very-detailed calendar.

The housewarming ceremony is called “Griha Pravesh,” and the most basic version is to boil milk in a new pot so that it flows over (so that the home may overflow with wealth), to burn incense around the house (to purify it) and to perform a Ganesh puja (Ganesh, the elephant-headed god, is the remover of obstacles). The most complicated ceremonies can get quite intense, including walking a cow around your house. We opted for the more basic one.

Moo.

My husband was not as concerned with all of this detail, but I still found it interesting. His amma (mom) told us we should not cook in our home prior to doing the Griha Pravesh ceremony. Some sources even said that you should perform the housewarming prior to moving in, or spending the first night, or only after construction, etc. etc.– but it seemed to be highly variable. Superstitious, but flexible… no problem.

We woke up early and took our showers. I wrestled with a saree (and broke a sweat for the effort) and then wandered to the kitchen to setup. I plucked some flowers from our garden and situated Ganesh facing east. We gave him a little miniature garland and applied some kumkum powder to his head.