The Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts of the Bombay Presidency from the Earliest Historical Times to the Musalman Conquest c8.s11.10

c8.s11.10

¹ The gôtra denotes a subdivision or clan, based on original family descent, in the Brâhman caste. And Dr. Bühler tells us (Ind. Ant. Vol. XII, p. 240) that, according to the compilations on gôtras, it was the practice of royal families to be affiliated to the Vêdic gôtras of their domestic, priests.—In the present case, the gôtra name seems, as in similar instances (see, e. g., the preceding note), other cases are probably the Kâśyapa and Kauṇḍinya gôtras of epigraphic records, which seem to be offshoots from the original Kâśyapa and Kauṇḍina gôtras, to represent a later offshoot from the original Mânava gôtra (Sanskrit Literature, p. 370). But the word is also a patronymic, meaning ‘descended from Manu,’ and Dr. Burnell,—who attributed the origin of the Mânava-dharmaśâstra or law-book of the Mânavas, popularly known as the Ordinances of Manu, to the period of the Western Chalukya kings of Bâdâmi, who also, with further the Kadambas, are represented as belonging to the Mânavya gôtra,—seems to have held (Ordinances of Manu, Introd. p. xxv, and note 4) that the Mânavas had then begun to call themselves Mânavyas, in connection with the tradition (for which, in detail, see Muir's Original Sanskrit Texts, Vol. I, pp. 161 to 238) that the whole Hindû race was descended from Manu, the son of the Sun.—A Western Châlukya record, apparently of the time of Jayasiṃha II. and dated in A.D. 1025-26 (at Kalyâṇ in the Baṅkapur tâluka, Dhârwâr District; Carn.-Désa Inscrs. Vol. I, p. 48), would account for the gôtra-nâme by the existence of a person named Mânavya: it says that the mind-born son of the god Brahman was Svayambhuva-Manu; his son was Mânavya, from whom came all those who belonged to the Mânavya gôtra; Mânavya's son was Harita; his son was Pañchaśikhi-Hâriti; and his son was Châlukya, from whom sprang the race of the Châlukyas. But this is simply one of various inventions—(others in the present passage are the persons Hâriti and Châlukya)—devised, in a later period, to account for appellations the origin of which had been forgotten in the lapse of time.