History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c63.t2.203

v4.c63.t2.203

*Gotrajas* (lit. 'those born in the same gotra' or agnates). Yāj. says that on failure of the heirs up to brother's sons the gotrajas succeed. Though one's father, brothers and brother's sons also are really gotrajas, they are expressly assigned certain fixed places in the order of heirs and other persons born in the gotra are included in the term gotrajas on the analogy of such an example as 'let the cattle be brought and also the bulls' where the bulls, though really included under 'cattle' (*gāvaḥ*), are separately mentioned in order to emphasize that special attention must be paid to them on account of their intractable nature. Vide p. 526 note 966 above. Acc. to the Mit. gotrajas are the father's mother (as the first among them), then other sapiṇḍas and samānodakas. The V. Mayūkha (p. 143) also says the same thing and places the father's mother as the first among gotraja sapiṇḍas. It may be remarked that Yāj. avoids the word sapiṇḍa and employs the word gotraja. The Mit. and Mayūkha state that sapiṇḍas succeed as heirs and that sapiṇḍas are of two kinds, viz. *gotrajas* (born in or having the same gotra as the *propositus*) and those that are born in (or are of) a different gotra. These latter (viz. *bhinnagotra sapiṇḍas*) are designated as *bandhus* by Yāj. Therefore it comes to this that, though Yāj. does not employ the word sapiṇḍa, the inheritance goes after the brother's son to the nearest sapiṇḍa. Yāj. knew the word 'sapiṇḍa' (I. 52) and defines the limits of sapiṇḍa relationship for marriage (in I. 53), from which it follows that he does not use the word sapiṇḍa in the sense given to the word by Jīmūtavāhana. In I. 68 Yāj. mentions both sapiṇḍa and sagotra (in the matter of *niyoga*) and thereby indicates two things viz. that the words were not synonymous and that sagotra had the same sense as gotraja.