History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v2.c26.121.2

v2.c26.121.2

From this it is clear that a marriage with one's maternal uncle's daughter or paternal aunt's daughter was in vogue in the south (below the Narmadā probably) long before the Baud. Dh. S. (i. e. several centuries before the Christian era) and that North India did not go in for such marriages and that orthodox sūtra writers like Gautama and Baudhāyana reprobated such practices. Manu (XI. 172-173) forbids such marriages "on approaching (for carnal intercourse) the daughter of one's father's sister or of one's mother's sister or of mother's full brother, a man must undergo the penance called 'cāndrāyaṇa'. A wise man should not take as his wife (any one of) these; they are not fit to be wedded because they are (sapiṇḍa) relatives, for by wedding them one sinks low (i. e. falls into hell or loses caste)". Haradatta on Āp. Dh. S. II. 5. 11. 16 quotes a verse from Śātātapa¹⁰⁸¹ prescribing the penance of *cāndrāyaṇa* for marrying one's maternal uncle's daughter or a girl having the same gotra as one's mother's gotra (i. e. maternal grandfather's gotra) or a sapravara girl and a text of Sumantu forbidding marriage with the daughter of the brother of one's mother or step-mother. It would be seen that all these relatives are third from the common ancestor and so are very much within the prohibition against marrying a sapiṇḍa, whatever be the number of prohibited degrees for marriage that are accepted.