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Hindus Gotra System: Scientific Meaning of Gotra in the Vedas
In Hindu society, the term gotra means clan. It broadly refers to people who are descendants in an unbroken male line from a common male ancestor.
However, all families having same gotra need not be cousins. They can be descendants of sons or disciples or even adopted sons of the Rishi(Seer), who is the root and whose name is used as Gotra. For example if a person says that he belongs to the Kutsa Gotra then it means that he traces back his male ancestry to the ancient Rishi (Saint or Seer) Kutsa.
Gotra means cowshed (Go=Cow, tra=shed) in Sanskrit. Paini defines gotra for grammatical purposes as apatyam pautraprabhrti gotram (IV. 1. 162), which means “the word gotra denotes the progeny (of a sage) beginning with the son’s son. This system was started among Brahmins, with a purpose to classify and identify the families in the community.
Hindu Brahmins identify their male lineage by considering themselves to be the descendants of the 8 great Rishis i.e Saptarishis (The Seven Sacred Saints) + Bharadwaja Rishi. So the list of root Brahmin Gotras is as follows :
. Angirasa
. Atri
. Gautam
. Kashyapa
. Bhrigu
. Vasistha
. Kutsa
. Bharadwaja
The offspring (apatya) of these eight are gotras and others than these are called ‘ gotravayava. These eight sages are called gotrakarins from whom all the 49 gotras (especially of the Brahmins) have evolved.
For instance, from Atri sprang the Atreya and Gavisthiras gotras.In almost all Hindu families, marriage within the same gotra is prohibited, since people with same gotra are considered to be siblings.
But the hidden reason behind this practice is the ‘Y’ Chromosome which is expected to be common among all male in same gotra. So, the woman too carries similar ‘X’ Chromosome and if married, their offspring may be born with birth defects. Few families even maintain their Pravara which is a list of all seers through which their Gotra was derived.
It connects to the root Seer. Gotra is always passed on from father to children among most Hindus, just like lastname(surname) is passed on worldwide. However, among Malayalis and Tulu’s its passed on from mother to children.
Additional rule in the Gotra system is that, even if the Bride and Bridegroom belong to different Gotras, they still cannot get married even if just one of their Gotra Pravara matches. Now, why only male carries fixed lastname and gotra and why female can change her last name, gotra after marriage?
Genes and Chromosomes Among Humans
Humans have 23 pairs of Chromosomes and in each pair one Chromosome comes from the father and the other comes from the mother. So in all we have 46 Chromosomes in every cell, of which 23 come from the mother and 23 from the father.
Of these 23 pairs, there is one pair called the Sex Chromosomes which decide the gender of the person. During conception, if the resultant cell has XX sex chromosomes then the child will be a girl and if it is XY then the child will be a boy. X chromosome decides the female attributes of a person and Y Chromosome decides the male attributes of a person.
When the initial embryonic cell has XY chromosome, the female attributes get suppressed by the genes in the Y Chromosome and the embryo develops into a male child. Since only men have Y Chromosomes, son always gets his Y Chromosome from his father and the X Chromosome from his mother. On the other hand daughters always get their X Chromosomes, one each from both father and mother.
So the Y Chromosome is always preserved throughout a male lineage (Father – Son – Grandson etc) because a Son always gets it from his father, while the X Chromosome is not preserved in the female lineage (Mother, Daughter, Grand Daughter etc) because it comes from both father and mother.
A mother will pass either her mother’s X Chromosome to her Children or her father’s X Chromosome to her children or a combination of both because of both her X Chromosomes getting mixed (called as Crossover).
On the other hand, a Son always gets his father’s Y Chromosome and that too almost intact without any changes because there is no corresponding another Y chromosome in his cells to do any mixing as his combination is XY, while that of females is XX which hence allows for mixing as both are X Chromosomes.
Women never get this Y Chromosome in their body. And hence Y Chromosome plays a crucial role in modern genetics in identifying the Genealogy ie male ancestry of a person. And the Gotra system was designed to track down the root Y Chromosome of a person quite easily. If a person belongs to Angirasa Gotra then it means that his Y Chromosome came all the way down over thousands of years of timespan from the Rishi Angirasa!
And if a person belongs to a Gotra (say Bharadwaja) with Pravaras (Angirasa, Bhaarhaspatya, Bharadwaja), then it means that the person’s Y Chromosome came all the way down from Angirasa to Bhaarhaspatya to Bharadwaja to the person.
This also makes it clear why females are said to belong to the Gotra of their husbands after marriage. That is because women do not carry Y Chromosome, and their Sons will carry the Y Chromosome of the Father and hence the Gotra of a woman is said to be that of her husband after marriage.
Note from KM: The above information was picked from Facebook and sharing it with the members. The Rishi's name is slightly varying from what is being used in southern part. Appears the Rishi's name are prevalent in North part of India. Can someone give the equivalent rishi's prevalent in Southern part of India
Hindus Gotra System: Scientific Meaning of Gotra in the Vedas
In Hindu society, the term gotra means clan. It broadly refers to people who are descendants in an unbroken male line from a common male ancestor.
However, all families having same gotra need not be cousins. They can be descendants of sons or disciples or even adopted sons of the Rishi(Seer), who is the root and whose name is used as Gotra. For example if a person says that he belongs to the Kutsa Gotra then it means that he traces back his male ancestry to the ancient Rishi (Saint or Seer) Kutsa.
Gotra means cowshed (Go=Cow, tra=shed) in Sanskrit. Paini defines gotra for grammatical purposes as apatyam pautraprabhrti gotram (IV. 1. 162), which means “the word gotra denotes the progeny (of a sage) beginning with the son’s son. This system was started among Brahmins, with a purpose to classify and identify the families in the community.
Hindu Brahmins identify their male lineage by considering themselves to be the descendants of the 8 great Rishis i.e Saptarishis (The Seven Sacred Saints) + Bharadwaja Rishi. So the list of root Brahmin Gotras is as follows :
. Angirasa
. Atri
. Gautam
. Kashyapa
. Bhrigu
. Vasistha
. Kutsa
. Bharadwaja
The offspring (apatya) of these eight are gotras and others than these are called ‘ gotravayava. These eight sages are called gotrakarins from whom all the 49 gotras (especially of the Brahmins) have evolved.
For instance, from Atri sprang the Atreya and Gavisthiras gotras.In almost all Hindu families, marriage within the same gotra is prohibited, since people with same gotra are considered to be siblings.
But the hidden reason behind this practice is the ‘Y’ Chromosome which is expected to be common among all male in same gotra. So, the woman too carries similar ‘X’ Chromosome and if married, their offspring may be born with birth defects. Few families even maintain their Pravara which is a list of all seers through which their Gotra was derived.
It connects to the root Seer. Gotra is always passed on from father to children among most Hindus, just like lastname(surname) is passed on worldwide. However, among Malayalis and Tulu’s its passed on from mother to children.
Additional rule in the Gotra system is that, even if the Bride and Bridegroom belong to different Gotras, they still cannot get married even if just one of their Gotra Pravara matches. Now, why only male carries fixed lastname and gotra and why female can change her last name, gotra after marriage?
Genes and Chromosomes Among Humans
Humans have 23 pairs of Chromosomes and in each pair one Chromosome comes from the father and the other comes from the mother. So in all we have 46 Chromosomes in every cell, of which 23 come from the mother and 23 from the father.
Of these 23 pairs, there is one pair called the Sex Chromosomes which decide the gender of the person. During conception, if the resultant cell has XX sex chromosomes then the child will be a girl and if it is XY then the child will be a boy. X chromosome decides the female attributes of a person and Y Chromosome decides the male attributes of a person.
When the initial embryonic cell has XY chromosome, the female attributes get suppressed by the genes in the Y Chromosome and the embryo develops into a male child. Since only men have Y Chromosomes, son always gets his Y Chromosome from his father and the X Chromosome from his mother. On the other hand daughters always get their X Chromosomes, one each from both father and mother.
So the Y Chromosome is always preserved throughout a male lineage (Father – Son – Grandson etc) because a Son always gets it from his father, while the X Chromosome is not preserved in the female lineage (Mother, Daughter, Grand Daughter etc) because it comes from both father and mother.
A mother will pass either her mother’s X Chromosome to her Children or her father’s X Chromosome to her children or a combination of both because of both her X Chromosomes getting mixed (called as Crossover).
On the other hand, a Son always gets his father’s Y Chromosome and that too almost intact without any changes because there is no corresponding another Y chromosome in his cells to do any mixing as his combination is XY, while that of females is XX which hence allows for mixing as both are X Chromosomes.
Women never get this Y Chromosome in their body. And hence Y Chromosome plays a crucial role in modern genetics in identifying the Genealogy ie male ancestry of a person. And the Gotra system was designed to track down the root Y Chromosome of a person quite easily. If a person belongs to Angirasa Gotra then it means that his Y Chromosome came all the way down over thousands of years of timespan from the Rishi Angirasa!
And if a person belongs to a Gotra (say Bharadwaja) with Pravaras (Angirasa, Bhaarhaspatya, Bharadwaja), then it means that the person’s Y Chromosome came all the way down from Angirasa to Bhaarhaspatya to Bharadwaja to the person.
This also makes it clear why females are said to belong to the Gotra of their husbands after marriage. That is because women do not carry Y Chromosome, and their Sons will carry the Y Chromosome of the Father and hence the Gotra of a woman is said to be that of her husband after marriage.
Note from KM: The above information was picked from Facebook and sharing it with the members. The Rishi's name is slightly varying from what is being used in southern part. Appears the Rishi's name are prevalent in North part of India. Can someone give the equivalent rishi's prevalent in Southern part of India