Indian Epigraphy c16.s7.16

c16.s7.16

Inscriptions of the early centuries, especially of South India, often mention persons, of both royal and ordinary ranks, with metronymics like Gautamīputra, ‘one born of a lady belonging to the Gautama gotra’. There is no doubt that the gotra mentioned in such cases is that of the father of a woman and not that of her husband. This shows that some of the popular forms of marriage in ancient India did not involve the gotr-āntara (i.e. the change of the wife’s paternal gotra to that of her husband) at the time of her marriage.²