History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v3.c42.s2.1

v3.c42.s2.1

Rai Bahadur Gaurishankar Ojha of Ajmer, on the other hand, believes the Agnikula tradition to be baseless but holds that the gotras of the Rajputs are not indicative of their descent, but of their discipleship. In short he follows the dictum of Vijnāneśvara laid down in his Mitāksharā (c. 1100 A. D.) that Kshatriyas have no gotras of their own but have to take the gotras of their purohitas. In his paper in Nāgari Prachāriṇī Journal Vol. V, No. 4 (p. 435-443) he holds that the gotras of the Rajputs were always taken from the purohitas upto the period they observed Vedic ritual; but "now even that is given up and now the gotra of the Rajput and his purohita are different". This itself is wrong for the Rajput still performs Vedic ritual and there is no reason why the gotra of the purohita should be different from that of the Rajput. We have given the arguments which show that Rajputs had always gotras of their own and that Vijñāneśvara's dictum is wrong, in Chapter V, Vol. II. The arguments advanced by P. Gaurishankar against our view are: 1st, that in the Saundarānanda Kāvya of Aśvaghoṣa, Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma are shown as taking different gotras from their different gurus and the Śakyas similarly took Gautama gotra; 2ndly, that in inscriptions we have instances of Rajput families having changed their gotras. How both these arguments are ineffectual we proceed to show.