Brahmin gotra

A verse from the Chandogya Upanishad.

The Rigveda states that the Brahmin community is descended from the first seven Brahmin saints (Saptarishi) of the Vedic age, who, according to the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, were, Vishvamitra, Jamadagni, Bharadwaja or jankidas, Gautama, Atri, Vasishta and Kashyapa.[5] With each member of the caste believed to trace their lineage back to one of these saints, a Brahmin’s Gotra represents a means to track an individual’s patriline and thus indicate which one of these saints is their ancestor.[9] For example, Brahmins of the Kashyapa Gotra are believed to have descended from the saint Kashyapa.[10][11]

Early Brahminical society was heavily influenced by the Gotric system. Another revered Vedic text, the Manusmriti, considers Brahmin Gotras to be exogamous units, developed to promote genetic diversity within the Brahmin caste.[12] With Gotras designed to prevent endogamous marriages within the fairly small early Brahmin community, any sexual or marital relations between individuals from the same Gotra were regarded as incestuous and forbidden, and only inter-Gotra marriages allowed. [13][14] Gotras were often also considered when dividing and distributing the property of a male Brahmin upon his death.[15] The Manusmriti states that after the death of a Brahmin man, any property he possessed must be passed down to those within his own Gotra.[15][16] This meant that his married daughters, who would change their Gotra to that of their husbands after their marriage, maternal relatives or the relatives of his wife bore no right to Brahmin man’s property after his death.[17] By the early modern period, as Brahminical society evolved further, Gotras often also dictated other aspects of a Brahmin’s life, such as defining the manner in which religious practices and rituals were performed by a family, the deities families worshipped, a Brahmin group’s social identity and sometimes even an individual’s occupation.[17]

Artistic portrayal of Manu and Saptarishi of the Vedic age.

Another potential reason behind the emergence of multiple new Brahmin Gotras, despite the repeated insistence of several Hindu texts that the caste is descended only from the Saptarishi, is thought to be due to the inconsistencies in Hindu literature regarding the identities of the Saptarishi themselves.[15] The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad holds that Vishvamitra, Jamadagni, Bhradwaja, Gautama, Atri, Vasishta and Kashyapa are the first Brahmin saints of the Vedic age and the sole ancestors of the Brahmin community, and while this list is largely accepted within most Brahmin communities, the identities of the saints who form the Saptarishi in fact vary largely across Hindu scriptures.[5] For example, in the Krishna Yajurveda, the Saptarishi are identified as Angiras, Bhrugu, Kutsa, Gautama, Atri, Vasishta and Kashyapa.[15] The variation from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad’s list are even more stark in texts such as the Mahabharata or the Brihat Samhita, with Atri and Vasishta the only saints remaining in common.[15]

Despite the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad being regarded as one of the primary authorities to trace Brahmin lineage, some Brahmin groups, often those who were inducted into the caste during the post-Vedic period, believe that they are descended from the saints acknowledged as the Saptarishi in post-Vedic texts such as the Mahabharata or the Brihat Samhita.[15] Due to the discrepancies between the Upanishad and these post-Vedic texts, a number of new Brahmin Gotras emerged during this period, with saints who were identified as part of the Saptarishi in these scriptures, such as Angiras and Shandilya denoted as the root ancestor.[22] Lastly, some Brahmin groups from northern India believe that the caste is descended from eight saints in the Vedic age; the Saptarishi as described in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad and Agastya, another revered Brahmin saint from the Vedic age.[23]Therefore, amongst these peoples, there are eight major Brahmin Gotras.

Every Brahmin Gotra is further sub-divided into several divisions Pravaras.[24] Translated literally from Sanskrit, the term means ‘most excellent’.[24] A Pravara represents the lineage of individuals from a particular Gotra who, according to Hindu literature, had ‘achieved greatness’.[24] These individuals were generally also saints or sages, often direct descendants of the Saptarishi, but were sometimes notable kings or princes of the Vedic Age such as Harita.[24] According to Brahminical belief, an individual is said to ‘achieve greatness’ if they consistently, throughout their lifetime, performed ‘noble deeds’, exhibited ‘Brahminical virtues’ and upheld the repute of their root ancestor.[25] There is no fixed number of Pravaras in every Brahmin Gotra, the number of sub-divisions within a Gotra depends on the number of individuals from the Gotra that Hindu texts deemed to have ‘achieved greatness’.[25] For example, the Bharadwaja Gotra has two Pravaras, Angirasa and Bharhaspatya, which represent the lineages of two revered Vedic sages who were descended from Bharadwaja.[26] Finally, as stated in the Rigveda, unlike a Gotra, a Pravara plays no specific role by itself in Brahminical life but is a ceremonial part of the identification of an individual’s lineage.[24]

Historically, the concept of the Gotra has played an integral role in the formation and development of Brahminical society. However, despite this historical importance, the Gotric system has been given minimal legal legitimacy in modern society.[33] India’s Hindu Marriage Act of 1955 regulates certain Brahminical marital customs but does not officially recognise Brahmin Gotras or the role they play in the lives of members of the caste.[34] In the 1945 case of Madhavrao v Raghavendrarao, where the sargotri marriage of a Deshastha Brahmin couple had been challenged by their families, the Bombay High Court ruled that Brahmin Gotra were not to be recognised as a legal way of tracing lineage and that the Gotric system did not have any legal standing to influence or control the marital rights of consenting individuals.[34]

• Brough, John (2013). The Early Brahmanical System of Gotra and Pravara: A Translation of the Gotra-Pravara-Manjari of Purusottama-Pandita. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-62398-9. Retrieved 26 September 2013.
• Madan, T. N. (1962). "Is the Brahmanic Gotra a Grouping of Kin?". Southwestern Journal of Anthropology. 18 (1): 59–77. doi:10.1086/soutjanth.18.1.3629124. ISSN 0038-4801. JSTOR 3629124. S2CID 147162743.