History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v2.c26.235.2

v2.c26.235.2

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.