D.A.IJA, literally lamp - holders ; the term applied to the handmaids who invariably form a part of the Rajput Daija (Rajasthan, i. p. 628), dowry or portion, which the Hindu wife brings a husband in marriage. It is the Maritagium of the civil law. Wilson, in a note to Mill's India (i. p. 447), says that amongst the Hindus the practice of purchasing a bride by a dower is apparently of modern growth, and a violation of the law.' There are, however, passages in Menu on the subject whichwould imply the observance of both practices; and the same may perhaps have continued till the time of the Greek invasion, for Arrian (Indica, cxvii.) says the Indians .neither took nor gave money in marriage ; while Megasthenes (Strabo, lib. xv.) says their wives were purchased for a yoke of oxen. Amongst the agricultural tribes in the N.W. Provinces, the present practice is most usual for the bride's father to purchase the bride groom, so that the man receives the dowry or Daija, which consists for the most part of money and household utensils. Thus, even when the
daughter of Jye-chand was forcibly abducted bv Prithi - raj, her father sent to him the richest gems, the fruits of the victory of Beejy Pal, inestimable wealth, pearls, elephants, and dyes. This custom, the fruitful source of female infanti cide, arises from the ahnost universal desire to obtain for the daughter the privilege of marrying into a higher family, which is only to be acquired by purchase. Sometimes, indeed, an imaginary purchase is made, similar to that which took place at certain Roman marriages, under the name of Coemptio, though of course not with a view of securing the peculiar kind of privileges which the Coemptio gave, but merely as a type of a custom of which the breach is thought preferable to the observance. This subject is noticed in Steele's Summary of the Law and Customs of Hindu Castes.—Elliot.