Gotra

Gotra on Wikipedia can be read here. [As of Jul 2023, this article needs lot of rework.] As usual, timings are relative to writing of scriptures, not the genesis of scriptures. The timeline used is the one assigned by Europeans to our history. We all know Ved Vyas categorized and compiled Ved during Mahabharat Kaal around 3100 BC. It contains good description, some genesis and reference to scriptures.

The opinion expressed that Gotra implies lineage meaning decedents of a person doesn’t sound logical to me. Number of Gotra varies in various sources and most of the time following rules are mentioned about gotra:

• It is named after a Saint/ Rishi.
• Marriage amongst the same Gotra is discouraged, considered bad.

Note: We know that in some of Bharat, marriage amongst relatives, especially between off-springs of Father’s sister and mother’s brother/ sister are practiced, in the name of wealth preservation.

Inferences from the above two observations are:

• A Saint/ Rishi used to run a Gurukul / Ashram where many students would reside during the early youth for education. The Rishi-Ma [wife of the Rishi] used to look after all the students. The whole ashram was a family.
• Once these students returned to their family after education, they could marry with students / their relatives from the same Ashram. Over time, this could become a close-knit group.
• Each such group would rival other such groups and may be cause of clash between such groups.
• Hence, Rishis decided to prohibit such practices and barred marriage within the group.
• Some went further to bar marriage where the gotra was same in up to 7 generations.
• The main objective was to keep harmony across these groups.
• In simple words, Gotra implies alumni and their decedents.

Since youths from all Varns could attend Ashram of the same Rishi, hence we find same Gotra in all Varns, Also, we don’t see Rishis running Ashrams exclusively for a given Varn.

Some other links: