History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v2.c26.89

v2.c26.89

This shows that the ancient smṛtis ungrudgingly recognised marriages between a brāhmaṇa and a kṣatriya or a vaiśya girl. But opinion was not unanimous about the marriage of a dvijāti with a śūdra woman. Such marriages took place, but were looked upon with disfavour and often condemned with severity. *Anuloma* marriages were frequent enough till the 9th or 10th century A. D., but became rare later and for the last several hundred years they hardly ever took place or they were not at all recognized as valid by the communities concerned. The epigraphic records furnish well authenticated instances of inter-caste marriages. The Vākāṭakas were brāhmaṇas (their gotra being Viṣṇuvṛddha). The Poona plates of Prabhāvatīguptā (E. I. vol. 15 p. 39) establish that she was a daughter of Candragupta II. (first quarter of 5th century A. D.) of the Imperial Gupta dynasty and became the chief queen of the king Rudrasena II of the Vākāṭaka line. The Taḷaguṇḍa pillar inscription of the Kadamba king Kakusthavarman (E. I. vol. 8 p. 24) recites that the founder of the Kadamba family was Mayūraśarman, a brāhmaṇa, who being exasperated with the Pallavas of Kāñcī took up the sword. His descendants have names ending in varman (as kṣatriyas should have, according to Manu II. 32). The inscription mentions that Kakusthavarman (who was 4th in descent from Mayūraśarman) got his daughters married to Gupta and other kings. In the Ghaṭotkaca Inscription of Yaśodharman and Viṣṇuvardhana (A. S. W. I. vol. 4, p. 140) we are told that Soma, a brāhmaṇa and ancestor of Hastibhoja, minister of the Vākāṭaka king Devasena, gave his heart to wives born in brāhmaṇa and kṣatriya families. The Tipperah copper-plate grant of a chieftain called Lokanātha (E. I. vol. 15, p. 301 ff) dated in the 44th year (probably of the Harṣa era i. e. about 650 A. D.) says that Lokanātha's ancestors belonged to the Bharadvāja gotra (p. 306) and that the maternal grand-father of Lokanātha was Keśava who is said to have been a pāraśava (p. 307), while Keśava's father Vīra was a brāhmaṇa (dvijasattama). Virūpādevī, a daughter of the famous Vijayanagara king Bukka I (1268-1298 A. D.), was married to a brāhmaṇa named Brahma or Bomaṇṇa Woḍeya, who was the Governor of the Āraga province (E. I. vol. 15, p. 12). Vide also E. I. vol. 18, p. 87 (dated 894 of the Vikrama era) for Pratīhāra kings being descended from a brāhmaṇa Haricandra and the latter's kṣatriya wife; the Āṭpur Inscription of Śaktikumāra dated in saṁvat 1034 (977 A. D.) which states that the founder of the Guhila dynasty was a brāhmaṇa Guhadatta, whose descendant Bhartṛpaṭṭa married a Rāṣṭrakūṭa princess.