New home pujas (गृह प्रवेश)
The rituals families keep for this occasion, and the order they are usually kept in.
4 pujas cover almost every booking for this occasion. Which ones you keep depends on your family's custom.
- Griha Pravesh गृह प्रवेश — the house-warming ceremony performed before moving into a new home
- Vastu Shanti वास्तु शांति — the rite kept for a newly built house before Griha Pravesh
- Satyanarayan Katha सत्यनारायण कथा — the katha of Bhagwan Satyanarayan, traditionally read to give thanks
- Havan हवन — the fire offering, kept on its own or as part of a larger vidhi
What new home asks of a family
Moving into a house has two rites, not one, and the order matters. Vastu Shanti is addressed to the site and the structure and is kept on a newly built house before anyone lives in it; griha pravesh is the family entering. A house that is bought or rented rather than built takes only the second.
Both are fixed to a muhurat rather than to a weekend, and the practical consequence is that the date comes before the movers. The tradition asks that the house be empty of furniture for the rite and that the household sleep there the night it is done, so a booking made after the van is loaded is usually a booking made too late.
The renovation case is the one families ask about most. Moving walls, rebuilding a kitchen or changing the entrance is treated by most pandits as reason for a Vastu Shanti; repainting is not. It is worth describing the work when the booking is made rather than deciding for yourself which it was.
