History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c63.t2.235

v4.c63.t2.235

The result of this way of defining a sapiṇḍa is to obliterate the distinction between a *gotraja* and a *bandhu*. Yāj. (II. 136) expressly says that a bandhu can succeed only on failure of all gotrajas and so according to him a bandhu is one who is not a gotraja. The Dāyabhāga brings in the sister's son immediately after the the brother's son's son and before the paternal grandfather (i. e. even before a near agnatic ancestor) who is literally a *gotraja*, while the sister's son is literally not a *gotraja*. When the Dāyabhāga designates one's sister's son as sprung from the *kula* of the owner though not of the same gotra, he does violence to popular usage prevalent throughout India. An ordinary person in India hardly ever says that his sister's son or father's sister's son is born in his own *kula*. The Dāyabhāga only quibbles over the word 'gotraja' in Yāj. which it reads in the singular (gotrajaḥ) and not in the plural (gotrajāḥ) as the Mit. does. Under the Mit. the sister's son is only a bandhu and cannot succeed before a paternal uncle or his son or a paternal grand-uncle or any other gotraja. The Dāyabhāga thus gives the go-by to the text of Yāj. and shuffles in several cognates as very near heirs. The D. B. regards Manu IX. 186-187 as the crucial text and Yāj. II. 135-36 as only secondary.