History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v2.c26.235
History of Dharmaśāstra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v2.c26.235
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XIV. 5. 2. 6) where these very seven sages are enumerated as those intended in the śloka ‘arvāg-bilaścamasa¹¹²⁷ &c.’ quoted there. The same work (Baud. śrauta) states that there are thousands, tens of thousands and *arbudas* (millions of millions) of gotras, but the pravaras are only 49. Besides the sūtra works, some purāṇas like the Matsya (chap. 195-202), the Vāyu (chap. 88 and 99, Ānan. ed.), Skanda III. 2 (Dharmāraṇya kāṇḍa) contain elaborate enumerations of gotras and pravaras. The Mahābhārata sets out at length the subdivisions (such as Madhucchandas, Devarāta) of Viśvāmitragotra in Anuśāsanaparva 4. 49-59. Digests like the Smṛtyarthasāra (pp. 14-17), the Saṁ. Pr. (pp. 591-680), the Saṁ. K. (pp. 637-692), the Nirṇayasindhu, the Dharmasindhu, the Bālambhaṭṭī contain a vast material on this topic. There are also special works like the Pravaramañjarī on this topic. The general conception about gotra is that it denotes all persons who trace descent in an unbroken male line from a common male ancestor. When a person says ‘I am Jamadagni-gotra’ he means that he traces his descent from the ancient sage Jamadagni by unbroken male descent. As stated by Baud. cited above, from very ancient times these male founders were supposed to be eight. This enumeration of eight primary gotras seems to have been known to Pāṇini. Patañjali says ‘there were eighty thousand sages who observed celibacy. The accepted opinion is that the spread of progeny was due to eight sages including Agastya.
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The offspring (apatya) of these eight are gotras and others than these are called *gotrāvayava*’.¹¹²⁸ Pāṇini defines gotra for grammatical purposes as ‘apatyam pautra-prabhṛti gotram’ (IV. 1. 162), which means ‘the word *gotra* denotes (in my work on grammar) the progeny (of a sage) beginning with the son’s son’. For example, the son of Garga would be called Gārgi, but the grandson would be called Gārgyaḥ and the plural Gargāḥ would denote all descendants of Garga (downwards from Garga’s grand-son). But this definition is a technical one in grammar and is meant to indicate how derived (*taddhita*) words are to be formed by means of terminations. Even Pāṇini makes use of this technical sense only in the *apatyādhikāra*, but elsewhere in his work he uses the word gotra in the popular sense as comprehending all descendants of a common male ancestor. Vide the Kāśikā on Pāṇini II. 4. 63, IV. 2. 39 and IV. 3. 80. The Saṁ Pr. (pp. 591–592) lucidly explains ¹¹²⁹ this. That a man belongs to a particular gotra is known by him only from tradition, from his father and other elders or from people about him, just as he knows that he is a brāhmaṇa from the same source ¹¹³⁰. Medhātithi on Manu III. 5. 194 has a very lucid and interesting discussion on this topic.
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His argument is : just as, though all persons are men, some are called brāhmaṇas, so among brāhmaṇas certain persons are known by immemorial usage (or convention) as belonging to certain gotras like Vasiṣṭha and the sūtra-kāras lay down that a certain gotra has certain pravaras; so the word gotra is applied to Vasiṣṭha and other sages by *rūḍhi* (by convention or long-standing usage). It cannot be supposed that a person called Parāśara was born at a certain time and then his descendants came to be called Parāśaras. In that case the Veda would not be *anādi* (beginningless), as it is supposed to be, since it mentions Parāśara, Vasiṣṭha &c. So gotra is *anādi* like the brāhmaṇa caste and the Veda. The word is also secondarily used to denote a person, who is very illustrious on account of his learning, wealth, valour or generosity, who thereby gives a name to his descendants and then becomes the founder of the family. This is *laukika gotra*. But this is not the meaning of gotras which brāhmaṇas have. The secondary meaning may apply to the word gotra when used in the case of kṣatriyas'.¹¹³¹ The Mit. on Yāj. I. 53 says 'gotra is that which is known from tradition handed down in the family.'¹¹³² Each gotra is associated with one, two, three or five sages (but never four or more than five) that constitute the pravara of that gotra.¹¹³³ The gotras are arranged in groups, e. g. there are according to the Āśvalāyana-śrauta-sūtra four subdivisions of the Vasiṣṭha gaṇa, viz.
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Upamanyu, Parāśara, Kuṇḍina and Vasiṣṭha (other than the first three). Each of these four again has numerous sub-sections, each being called gotra. So the arrangement is first into gaṇas, then into pakṣas, then into individual gotras. The first has survived in the Bhṛgu and Āṅgirasa gaṇa. According to Baud. the principal eight gotras were divided into pakṣas. The pravara of Upamanyu is Vasiṣṭha, Bharadvasu, Indrapramada; the pravara of the Parāśara gotra is Vasiṣṭha, Śāktya, Pārāśarya; the pravara of the Kuṇḍina gotra is Vasiṣṭha, Maitrāvaruṇa, Kauṇḍinya and the pravara of Vasiṣṭhas other than these three is simply Vasiṣṭha. It is therefore that some define pravara as 'the group of sages that distinguishes the founder (lit. the starter) of one gotra from another'.¹¹³⁴