History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v2.c23.281

v2.c23.281

A few words may be said about matronymics. A few examples of such names have been given above from Vedic Literature. Āśv. gṛ.⁵⁷⁴ (I. 5. 1.) says that in selecting a bridegroom or bride "one should first examine the family, as has been already said 'those who on the mother's and father's side'". This refers to the Āśv. Śrauta sūtra where it is required that both parents of the brāhmaṇa at the time of camasabhakṣaṇa in Daśapeya should be for ten generations perfect in their learning, austerities, and meritorious works and who can be traced to have throughout been of the brāhmaṇa class on both sides &c. Yāj. I. 54 enjoins that one should choose a girl from a great family of śrotriyas, which has been famous for ten generations (for learning and character). Therefore when in certain cases a person is named after his mother or after the gotra of his mother's father, all that is intended to be conveyed is that he is descended from worthy male and female ancestors. There is no question in such cases of matriarchy. In the Nasik Inscription No. 2 (E. I. vol. VIII. p. 60) siri Puḷumāyi is described as Vāsiṭhīputa and in E. I. vol. VIII. p. 88 the Ābhīra king Īśvarasena is described as Mādharīputra.⁵⁷⁵ In a Scythian Inscription (E. I. vol. X at page 108) we have mention of 'the son of Bhārgavī'. In all these cases the mother's gotra name is specially emphasized probably to convey that the mothers were of the bluest blood. Comparatively late writers mention the gotra in which their mother was born (e. g. Bhavabhūti who flourished about 700-750 A. D. says that he was a Kāśyapa while his mother was a Jātūkarṇī). From a Kārikā in the Mahābhāṣya we learn that the great grammarian Pāṇini was the son of a Dākṣī. Pāṇini himself⁵⁷⁶ (IV. 1. 147) delivers a special rule about the formation of a name for a man from the gotra name of his mother to convey contempt (e. g. Gārgaḥ or Gārgikaḥ, a rogue, from his mother's name Gārgī).⁵⁷⁷ Śāṅkhāyana gṛhya (I. 25. 2-9, S. B. E. vol. 29, p. 52) prescribes that the father and mother (having bathed themselves and the child) should put on new clothes, that the father should cook a mess of food in the sūtikāgni, that he is to offer oblations to the *tithi* of the boy's birth and to three constellations with their presiding deities, that he is to place in the middle the oblation to the nakṣatra of birth and he should make two other oblations to fire with two mantras and then the 10th oblation is made to Soma with Ṛg. I. 91. 7. The father pronounces aloud the child's name and causes the brāhmaṇas to say auspicious words.