Of Gotra and Marriages among cousins in South India

Let's start with the concept of Gotra.

While some opine that Gotra is simply the 'abode of cows' or 'house of cows' indicating a typical paternal familial line, others opine that Gotra is made up of two parts: go meaning the indriyas or senses and tra meaning to protect. Either case, Gotra is a patrilineal familial association, with a Rishi as the originator. In other words, a Gotra is a group of people who all share a single forefather. The Gotra is often synonymous with the Rishi. Even more simply, your Gotra is the same as your father's, his (your father's) is the same as his father's and so on until they reach a root rishi from whom the Gotra originated.

The Gotra is usually used during various rituals to identify the yajamana, or the person conducting the rituals, as well as during marriages to check the familial associations of the bride and groom. 

Per Sanatana custom, two related philosophies are prevalent in Bharata: mitaakshara and daayabhaaga

The daayabhaaga vidhi is prevalent in Bengal and portions further East. The rest of India follows the mitaakshara vidhi from Punjab all the way down to Kanyakumari. The primary difference between these two is in terms of succession, and therefore is not relevant to our discussion.

In the mitaakshara vidhi, two lineages of people are identified for every individual: gotraja and bhinna-gotraja. 

Typically a gotraja (of any person) is someone who shares a patrilineal line (up to 5 generations, per Hindu Law), and a bhinna gotraja, someone who shares a matrilineal line (up to 3 generations, again per Hindu Law).  

In other words, all people tracing their parental lineage to your father's paternal grand father's, paternal grand father are your gotrajas. Similarly, all people tracing their parental lineage to your mother's maternal grandmother are your bhinna gotrajas. Per Hindu common law, marriage to your gotrajas and bhinna gotrajas are forbidden and indeed considered null and void in an Indian Court of Law.

The reasons for this appear to be rooted in ensuring sufficient genetic diversity among the populations and preventing the ills stemming from genetic homogeneity. There appear some instances from ancient past where sa-gotra marriages were normal, even encouraged - perhaps to 'keep wealth within the household', but with the resulting birth defects that occur with such marriages, the practice was not only abandoned, but also outlawed among ancient Indic societies. 

There seem to have been 4 gotras originally - kAshyapa, AMgirasa, vasiShTa, and bhrigu (jamadagni). This seems to have increased to 8 in the first stage of additions (adding atri, vishwamitra, and agastya plus kEvala bhrigu) - representing the Saptarishis, eventually ending up with a total of 108 gotras. A statistical count appears to show an equal distribution of gotras across all varnas of people.

Among South Indian states, marriage among cousins is fairly common, and is much misunderstood, especially by other sections of society where this is not permitted, assuming all cousin weddings are allowed. 

Before the generic "eww... cousin marriage" reaction, let us understand the underpinnings of why marriages among blood-relatives are disallowed: The very simple reason for this is the need to preserve genetic diversity. A standard boiler-plate note on genetic diversity would read as: 

A lack of genetic diversity can make it harder for a species to adapt to environmental changes and survive. Genetic diversity is the raw material for evolution, and species need it, along with reproductive excess and a selective force, to evolve. When there is low genetic diversity, there are fewer differences between individuals, and therefore fewer opportunities to adapt to environmental changes. This can make populations more vulnerable to extinction

More simplistically, among humans, a lack of genetic diversity leads to physical and mental birth defects in children, and eventually to a high infant mortality rate within a few generations. Given that birth defects in the South and North are more or less identical despite marriages among cousins (in fact infant mortality is lowest in the Southern states), there must be something the South does to ensure the requisite genetic diversity. 

Obviously, the law is applied differently in the South. Not all ‘cousin marriages’ are permitted. Think of it as gotraja and bhinna gotraja being redefined 

Typically a gotraja (of any person in the South Indian context) is someone who shares a patrilineal line, and a bhinna gotraja, someone who shares a matrilineal line respectively. 

 

Patrilineal lineage is a male and his male progeny (your father, his brothers and their sons, your paternal grandfather, his brothers and all their sons and grandsons, and so on). 

 

Matrilineal line is a female and her female progeny (your mother, her sisters and their daughters, your maternal grandmother, her sisters and all their daughters and grand daughters, and so on). 

While the patrilineal line is readily detectable (same gotra), the matrilineal line takes some digging. 

First up, marriages in the same gotra are disallowed regardless of the number of generations - that automatically removes the father’s male siblings’ children. (In some extreme cases, people do come up with 7 generations and other justifications, but in general sagotra marriages are frowned upon, even leading to exile of the couple, and anyone who associates with them - including parents of the couple - in the villages, and in specific cases that I have known personally). Also disallowed are marriages with your mother's female siblings' children. This also extends to second, third or higher order cousins in the patrilineal line, and second, third or higher cousins in the matrilineal line.

Both these categories (father’s brothers’ children, and mother’s sisters’ children) are often called “cousin-brother” and “cousin-sister” - a term generally not meaningful to those who do not know/understand - or in ignorance, misuse the term for all cousins. In comparison, the other cousins - father's sisters' children and mother's brothers' children are just cousins, distinguishing between the two types of cousins. Think of it as chachera bhai/chacheri behen and mausera bhai/mauseri behen verseus bua ka beta/ki beti and mama ka ladka/ki ladki. bua/mama ke bachche are not called bhai/behen for this reason. 

Among first cousins, this leaves only father’s sisters’ children (who are obviously not of the same gotra) and mother’s brothers’ children (also, equally obviously not of the same gotra) as potential permissible spouses.

Generally, though, in modern times, marriages even among permissible cousins - first, second, or third - has decreased significantly, particularly in urban/semi-urban areas. 

I tried to make a graphic starting from a male entity to indicate permissible cousin-marriages. This can be extended to a female entity easily by switching the genders of each unit in the graphic. 

In the image below, the dotted lines indicate lineage rather than draw out the whole tree. The yellow depictions are contingent on a different gotra from the person in question in the blue circle at the center (unlike the green depictions who are by default of a different gotra, the ones in yellow could be from the same gotra, and hence unallowed). The Reds, of course, are unallowed. I haven’t shown more details since that would take up too much space and make the chart unreadable:

2/8 types of first cousins are permissible

14/32 types of second cousins potentially permissible and so on.

Note that this also works across generations - for example, women marrying their maternal uncles, pretty-much following the same template: not in the same gotra, and not in the female-matrilineal line. Once again, the genetic diversity is thought to be sufficient with such marriages. 

The genetic degeneration of from marital relations within the gotra was found out a long time ago, and thus marriages marriage within the same gotra were banned. Apparently, the gotra filter (combined with the forbidden matrilineal [patrilineal automatically comes under the gotra filter] marriages) provides sufficient genetic diversity to stem this degeneration else, one can imagine a high rate of birth defects within the populations. A person's father's sister's (or mother's brother's) children would have their own father's (or mother's) genes and this diversity appears to be sufficient to sustain populations.

Hoping to demystify cousin-marriages in the South for folks who do not understand the concept and think cousin marriages are indiscriminate. One doesn't need to 'eww' at ideas they don't follow without really understanding the science and limitations beneath the superficial. 

More astronomical phenomena in the Veda and in Pauranic Stories

As I have been saying in these pages previously, astronomical phenomena and observations were encoded to complexly woven stories and attached to other major works (such as the various Puranas, the Mahabharata or the Ramayana or the Harivamsha Kavya, or Yogavasishta) for dual purposes - saving them for perpetuity, as well as making them easier to remember.

And the method worked! Although, only to a certain extent. While the stories have been preserved, we forgot to decode them and treated them as 'myths', not realizing they were clues to something bigger, not only in terms of the phenomenon itself in question, but also towards pinning them to a point in time. 

Only with recent advancements and refinements in the understanding of celestial dynamics and planetary software have two completely diverse fields of study come together to produce some gems that we are finally able to decode. The results are mind-boggling in content and mind-blowing in reach. 

Here's one such, rooted in the Rigveda and expounded in the Puranas. 

Rigveda 10.17.1 and 10.17.2 say: 

त्वष्टा दुहित्रे वह्तुं कृणॊतीतीदं विश्वं भुवनं समॆति

यमस्य माता पर्युह्यमाना महॊ जाया विवस्वतो ननाश ||1||

अपागूहन्नमृतां मर्त्येभ्यः कृत्वी सवर्णामददुर्विवस्वते

उताश्चिनावभरद्यत्तदासीदजहादु द्वा मिथुना सरण्यूः  ||2||

The simple translation of works out as: 

Tvashtri celebrates the wedding of his daughter (Saranyu) and the entire world assembles for the wedding, but she (Saranyu, Yama's mother, spouse of Vivasvan i.e Surya), vanished.

 

The Devas hid this fact from the mortals and in her (Saranyu's) stead created another (person) in her likeness and presented her to Vivasvan. Saranyu brought to him two sets of twins: the Ashvin brothers, as well as Yama and Yami. 

While these are a terse couple of shlokas, Asthana Mahavidvan H P Venkata Rao in his seminal work on the Rigveda (in Kannada) relates a longer story on this based in the niruktavachana: Tvashtri's daugher Saranyu (some times also called Sanjana/Sanjna) bore the twins Yama (deity of Dharma) and Yami (also identifed as Yamuna) with Surya, the Sun. Then, nominating a likeness of her in her place, she abandoned Surya, took the form of a mare and retired to the forests. The likeness of Saranyu was (later) called Chaya (shadow), and she gave birth to Shani, who was later elevated to the Navagrahas, although he is the farthest from Surya, because when Surya found out about the deception (with Chaya) he was livid and went in search of Saranyu. Finding her in the forests in the form of a mare, he too took the form of a horse and the two lived happily for a while. The Ashvin twins (celestial healer deities) were born during this time (hence the horse-form/some times horse heads for the Ashvins)

Some of the Puranas add more color to this story: The reason why Saranyu abandoned Surya was because he became too bright, too brilliant, too hot. So Saranyu goes off to cooler regions to ostensibly cool off from the unbearable heat of her husband. Later Tvastri (or Vishwakarma) reduces the brightness of the Surya restoring both Saranyu and Surya to their appropriate homes. 

Meanwhile, there is another shloka in the Rigveda that adds to this story, although this time in a different Mandala - Mandala 3. 

Rigveda 3.58.1 says: 

धॆनुः प्रत्नस्य काम्यं दुहानांतः पुत्रश्चरति दक्षिणायाः

आ द्यॊतनिं वहति शुभ्रयामॊषसः स्तॊमॊ अश्विनावजीगः

The simple translation of this works out as 

Ushas (the deity of dawn), provides the desired milk (strength) to Agni (the deity of fire). As Surya traverses the sky, Ushas awakens the Ashvins for their share of the (fruit of) Yajna. 

 

On the face of it, this sounds like a good story, but essentially in the larger scheme of things a pointless story, until we decrypt the code and get to the facts. Remember, the story is an allegory to real/observed phenomena - especially as it relates to known celestial objects.

The key here is the coming together of the two stories of the Ashvins from the third and tenth mandalas. One awakens a baby, or a child, on the basis of that, the birth of the Ashvin-twins and this awakening can be tied together (if they were unconnected, it might, for instance, have been said that 'Ushas invites the Ashvins to share the fruit of yajna'; that isn't the case however - the Veda are Darshana Shastras, hence it is critical to make these connections). Esteemed freedom fighter Balgangadhar Tilak was the first one in modern times to identify this phenomenon. 

While the descriptions by Ralph Griffith, HP Venkata Rao and the Sayana bhashya all differ in the explanations of 3.58.1, the bottom line appears to be that Ashvins appear at dawn. This is the only piece relevant to our discussion. The Ashvins (a.k.a Ashvini Nakshatra) are conventionally mapped to the stars β and γ Arietis in western astronomy. 

Meanwhile, Surya went to cooler regions in search of Sanjana (who had previously gone over to 'cooler regions' in the first place), therefore it must be Winter (in earth's Northern Hemisphere, since the geographical basis is, of course, Bharat (India)) - specifically Winter Solstice - with a quick reminder of spatial cardinal points here (the two solstices and the two equinoxes)

So, cranking back time to a point where β and γ Arietis appear in the sky at dawn around Winter Solstice in the Northern hemisphere, the calendar goes back to..... 7200 BCE. 

Okay - we're not (just) discussing the antiquity of the Veda, astronomical observations and dating methods here. What about Surya being too bright, Sanjana migrating to cooler regions and the rest? Can we find some other corroborations to this celestial observation date?

Two papers in the journal Nature in recent years provide an independent corroboration of sorts: These papers indicated a massive Solar flare activity ~9000 years BP (~7176 BCE). If a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) event were to occur, resulting in a concentration of charged solar particles in the inner solar system, and if these hit the earth, they get pushed to the poles because of earth's magnetic field, and end up interacting with earth atmosphere resulting in the Auroras Borealis and Australis - a.k.a Northern lights. At such times, specific isotopes/particles rain down on the earth and eventually get buried in the ice becoming a part of the ice caps, which is how the authors of the paper hypothesized a large CME event. 

If the CME event is severe and earth sees a heavy concentration of these charged solar particles (such as in the Carrington event of 1859), the Auroras - Borealis and Australis - can reach to much lower altitudes - such as those in Northern India, and the sky is lit up with these particles and their interactions even at night. The 7176 BCE CME event is estimated an order of magnitude larger than the Carrington event as evidenced by ice core samples from Greenland and Antarctica. 

Now things start to come together. Surya became too brilliant/bright for a while - the 7176 CME event leading to Auroras at very low latitudes, Sanjana migrated to "cooler regions" and was followed by Surya, i.e this happened around the Winter Solstice. The Ashvin twins were born during this time - the Indian astronomers/sages put a further identification around this with the Ashvini nakshatra at dawn, yielding a date of 7200BCE to modern researchers. 

Whew! Mind blown!

Initial trigger for kickstarting this article: Raj Vedam's podcast on BeerBiceps 

Reference: 

Cosmogenic radionuclides reveal an extreme solarparticle storm near a solar minimum 9125 years BP Chiara I. Paleari  Florian Mekhaldi, Florian Adolphi, Marcus Christl, Christof Vockenhuber, Philip Gautschi, Jürg Beer, Nicolas Brehm, Tobias Erhardt, Hans-Arno Synal, Lukas Wacker, Frank Wilhelms & Raimund Muscheler

Dating Methods and Antiquity of the Panchangam

Let me start with a short(ened) story - one that you may already be aware of: 

The Moon/Chandra/Soma has 27 wives. The 27 wives (who are the daughters of Prajapati Daksha) are listed starting with Kritika (Pleiades) but his (Chandra's) favorite wife was Rohini (Aldebaran). This favoritism causes a lot of unhappiness amongst his other 26 wives and they complain to Prajapati Daksha, who gives shaapa (loosely translated as 'curse') to Chandra that his body will progressively waste away. Eventually, after much pleading by Chandra, and the intervention of Shiva (to whom Chandra also prays to intercede on his behalf) Daksha Prajapati relents and while the shaapa cannot be taken back, he says that this wasting will be periodic and Chandra will recover his full body. 

The actual story is much longer and more intricate. I have shortened it to the principal parts that matter. What is hidden in this story? Per Indic tradition, the sky ecliptic is divided into 27 segments (since with respect to distant stars, Moon completes one rotation in 27 days), and a principal bright(est) star in each segment is named. Each segment is called a nakshatra, with the said bright star sharing the nakshatra name. These are the 27 wives of the Chandra, the moon, Rohini and Krittika among them. In the Moon's transit across the skies, it goes to each of these 27 segments (or wives' houses) while in observance is closer to Rohini/Aldebaran than any of the other principal stars in the 27 nakshatras/segments of the sky, hence the 'favoritism' part. The wasting/recovery relates to the phases of Chandra or the Moon.

The point here is that the story is an allegory; actual, observed astronomical phenomena were encoded into complexly woven stories for two reasons: one to make it easier to remember the phenomenon, and two, to ensure that the phenomenon itself isn't forgotten - as humans (especially those without the benefit of having writing being preserved for millennia, and Indic tradition was indeed shruti or aural-based rather than written), a good story is a better way to remember rather than dry facts. 

Now on to what I really intended to convey in this monograph: 

Pretext: Brahmanas (the scripture variety, not the person variety) are essentially manuals for prayoga attached to Veda Samhitas, which explain and instruct on the performance of Vedic rituals. The Aitareya Brahmana itself is the Brahmana of the Shakala Shakha of the Rigveda, traditionally is ascribed to a certain Mahidasa Aitareya.

There is a passage in the Aitareya Brahmana (dvitiya adhyaaya) that says thus: 

यज्ञो वै देवेभ्य उदक्रामत्‌ ते देवा न किंचना शक्‌नुवन्‌ 
कर्तु न प्राजानंस्ते ब्रुवन्नदितिं त्वयेमं यज्ञं प्रजानामेति सा तथेत्यब्रवीत्सा वै वो वरं वृणा इति; 
वृणीष्वेति सैतमेव वरमवृणीत मन्प्रायणा यज्ञाः संतु मदुदयना इति तथेति; 
तस्मादादित्यश्वरुः प्रायणीयोभवत्यादित्य उदयनीयो वरवृतो हास्याः 

Transcoding and translating this (from The Aitareya Brahmana Of Rgveda, Dr. Sudhakar Malaviya, Hindi translation, re-translated to English)

Yajna went away from the Devas. They were unable to do anything, nor know why and where Yajna had gone. They went and prayed to Aditi (the mother of all the Devas): Only with your help we will be able to find Yajna again (i.e please help us). Aditi says "I will help you but you will have to grant me a vara"(loosely translated, boon). The Devas requested Aditi to seek her vara, and she said "Let the Yajna start from me and end at me". This is why offerings are offered to Aditi both at the prAyaNIya iShTi (i,e the beginning of the Yajna) and at the udAyanIya iShTi (i.e the end of the Yajna)

* * * * *

The passage before this section (this is the beginning of the second adhyaya) speaks of prAyaNIya

स्वर्गे वा एतेन लोकमुपप्रयंति यत्प्रयणीयस्तव्यायणीयस्य प्रायणीयत्वं 

The yajamana (one who performs) of the prAyaNIya prayoga (loosely translated as rite or ritual) experiences a nearness or proximity to Svarga (the abode of the Devas). Hence this ritual is called the prAyaNIya. 

This is followed by: 

[Segue: There are 5 types of vital forces - pancha pranas - in the body, per Indic scriptures: 

prANa: upward/inward moving energy

apAna: downward/outward moving energy

vyAna: circulation of energy

udAna: balancing of energy

samAna: assimilation of energy

All these are loose translations - these are not only untranslatable words, but also interpreted variously, especially with respect to new-age Yoga. 

End Segue]

प्राणॊ वै प्रायणीय उदान उदयनीयः समानो होत भवति; 

समानौ हि प्राणोदानौ प्राणानां क्लृप्त्यै प्राणानां प्रतिप्रज्ञात्यै

 

prAyaNIya is praNa and udAyanIya is udAna. The hotr (the priest conducting the prayoga) is samAna. Because prANa and udAna are samAna, prANa is karma (action) and udAna is jnAna (knowledge). 

There are some interpretational aspects to this, but the underlying meaning on this appears to be that prAyaNIya is the beginning and udAyanIya is the end of the yajna. The deeper meaning is not very important to the current context. 

* * * * *

And the passage after the primary one in question (the one at the top) is followed by: 

अथो एतं वरमवृणीत मयैव प्रचींदिशां प्रजानाथाग्निन दक्षिणां सोमेन प्रतीचीं सवित्रोदीचीमिति

She (Aditi) asked for one more vara 'through me you shall know the direction of East, through Agni South, through Soma the West and through savitr the North' 

The following passages in this (second) adhyaya enumerate the cardinal directions and goes on to summarize that the yajna is dedicated to the five devatas namely Pathya, Agni, Soma, Savita, and Aditi herself, and go on to list the more detailed procedures that must be followed during the yajna. 

* * * * *

The only part of this entire section that has a conversation is the conversation of the Devas speaking with Aditi, in the midst of detailing how the yajna must be conducted. 

- Why would this conversation be entered here, in the middle of a practical manual? 
- What could be the objective? 
- Why be so cryptic that Yajna (himself?) is missing (or has gone away)? 
- What does it mean that they did not know where he'd gone to?
- How does it procedurally connect to the yajna itself? (remember this is a manual for prayoga/procedure)

Here in lies the secret. The eminent scholar, freedom fighter Balgangadhar Tilak recognized it for what it exactly was for: 

This is an astronomical phenomenon or occurrence that is encoded as a story/conversation. In Indic tradition, the celebration of all yajnas, festivals and other rites was attached to the celestial calendar - the celestial clock in the sky, based on star positions. If the celestial clock went out of sync, then the time of celebration of these rites also went awry. 

This appears to be the time/event when, apart from the basic (24 hour) rotation of earth, the 365.24 day revolution around the sun, the 29.5 day lunar synodic month and a 27.3 day lunar sidereal month, they also recognized the precession of the earth's axis. 

The precession of the earth's axis relates to the slow 26000 year wobble of the earth's axis because of the gravitational impact of the Sun, the moon and to a lesser extent of Jupiter. One of the consequences of this axial precession is the changing of the polestar [the star around which our skies rotate] - now Polaris/Dhruva, it can be Vega/Abhijit at the other extreme in approximately 25,772 ÷ 2 = 12886 years

In the Indic tradition, Sidereal astronomy was used to mark time.  Time was marked based on the nakshatra at cardinal spatial points (the cardinal spatial points are the two solstices and the two equinoxes). 

So for example, conventionally, in India, the beginning of a year has always been at Vernal equinox. There is a large volume of scripture indicating Krittika (Pleiades) as the nakshatra at Vernal Equinox. However, this no longer true - today the nakshatra at Vernal equinox is Uttara Bhadrapada. The closest time in the recent past that Krittika was the nakshatra at Vernal equinox was in - wait for it - 2400 BCE - and can be confirmed by Planetarium software. 

The upshot of this is that the sky-calendar shifts over time and in order to provide a firm basis of when to perform a yajna before saying how to perform it, the conversation with aditi has been added to the Aitareya Brahmana. When Aditi says all yajna will begin and end with me, it actually means that Vernal equinox will begin and end at Aditi. 

Among the 27 nakshatras is Punarvasu, which itself is made up of two stars: Diti and Aditi (Castor and Pollux). When we track back time to when Punarvasu was at Vernal Equinox point, time needs to be pushed back a staggering 6000 BCE. In other words, 8000 years ago, our ancestors were already noticing that their calendars were messed up because of axial precession and had to figure out a correction to the calendar, in turn implying that the calendar had already been in existence at least 1000 years prior (26000 years or axial precession vs 27 nakshatras of the ecliptic). 

That puts a fully observed and cataloged sky and a fully formed panchangam or calendar based on star positions to at least 9000 years ago to 7000BCE. Not to mention, around 6000BCE, finding the calendar out of whack, they not only reset the calendar to Aditi/Punarvasu, but also set up a self-correcting calendar which put the start of the cycle for Vernal Equinox at Aditi/Punarvasu, having recognized that the changing of the sidereal year was cyclic and not unidirectional. This is the actual phenomenon documented by the story of Aditi and Yajna.

Whew! When I heard Raj Vedam detail this on a podcast recently, I had rush of goosebumps! 

This is our tradition. 

This is our tradition. 

The other aspect of this is how historical and astronomical phenomena were recorded in story form. To a garden variety reader - someone unaware of context, tradition and prayoga, that is, for someone who is not a practicing Sanatani, for one who has not undergone years of traditional studies, it would be near impossible to understand it for what it is. They would peg this as (an irrelevant) a conversation/story/myth and move on (as have numerous Western scholars on the Aitareya Brahmana). Again, this goes to show the information loss that occurs when we read a colloquial (laukika) translation of Samskritam scripture rather than its yaugika intent