History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c63.t2.252.1

v4.c63.t2.252.1

Even under the Mitākṣarā in the whole of India (except in the Bombay and Madras schools), no women succeed as gotraja sapiṇḍas (except five expressly named and cited above on p. 713). In Bombay the sister (full or half) is brought in as a gotraja by the V. Mayūkha (though the Mitākṣarā is entirely silent) and placed by it immediately after the paternal grandmother. It relies on the general words of Manu IX. 187 and of Bṛ. (quoted above on p. 733) that to the nearest person in blood the inheritance goes and then proceeds:¹⁴⁴² 'She is also a gotraja as being born in the gotra in which her brother (the deceased owner) was born. She is, however, not a *sagotra* (of the deceased brother), but being a sagotra is not mentioned here (in Yāj.) as the condition that leads on to the taking of the wealth of the deceased'. Here the V. Mayūkha plays upon the word *gotraja* and takes its literal meaning. But that is a specious argument. The widow and mother are not gotrajas (in this sense of being born in the gotra) but on marriage they enter the gotra of their husbands and become sagotra. Further, on the same reasoning, a son's daughter, brother's daughter, father's sister and other women born in the family of the deceased will become his gotrajas (though not sagotras because on marriage they pass into the gotra of their husbands). But these other women are not expressly recognised even by the V. Mayūkha as gotrajas. Even though she was not mentioned in the Mit.