Gotra and the Satavahana evidence

From about 1000 BCE, Brahmanas classified people into gotras. Each gotra was named after a Vedic seer, and all members of the gotra were regarded as his descendants.

Two rules were important:

• a woman was expected to give up her father's gotra and take her husband's gotra at marriage;
• members of the same gotra could not marry each other.

But were these rules always followed? The Satavahana rulers (who ruled parts of western India and the Deccan) give us evidence. Several of them were identified by metronymics: names derived from the mother's name, such as Gotami-puta, 'son of Gotami'.

Their queens kept their fathers' gotra names, instead of taking their husbands'. And some queens belonged to the same gotra as their husbands, which goes against exogamy. This is endogamy (marriage within a group), a practice common in south India.

Do metronymics mean that mothers were powerful? Not necessarily: succession to the Satavahana throne was still patrilineal. Names can reveal how rules were bent.