Traditional In Hindu culture, the term gotra (Sanskrit: गोत्र) is considered to be equivalent to lineage.
The specific meaning "family, lineage kin" (as it were "herd within an enclosure") is relatively more recent, first recorded around the mid-1st millennium BCE (e.g., Chandogya Upanishad).
The Brahmanic system was later adopted by other communities, such as the Kshatriyas and Vaishyas[5] According to the Vedic theories, the Brahmins are direct descendants of seven sages who are believed to be the sons of Brahma, born out of his mind through yogic prowess.
[6] According to Robert Vane Russell, many gotras of Hindu religion are of totemic origin which is named after plants, animals, and natural objects.
The commonest totem names are those of animals, including several which are held sacred by Hindus, as bagh or Nahar, the tiger; bachhas, the calf; murkuria, the peacock; kachhua, the tortoise; nagas, the cobra; hathi, the elephant; bhains, the buffalo; richaria, the bear; Kuliha, the Jackal, Kukura, the dog; kursaal, the deer; Hiran, the black-buck and so on.
Similarly, the origin of other rishis is attributed to animals, Rishyasringa to an antelope, Mandavya to a frog, Kanada to an owl.
People within the gotra are considered as siblings and marrying such a person can lead to higher chances for the child to get genetically transferred diseases.
In communities where gotra membership passed from father to children, marriages were allowed between a woman and her maternal uncle,[8] while such marriages were forbidden in matrilineal communities, like Tuluvas, where gotra membership was passed down from the mother.
A much more common characteristic of South Indian Hindu society is permission for marriage between cross-cousins (children of brother and sister) as they are of different gotras.
There is no harm in Sagotra marriage if the individuals are not related for six generations on both maternal and paternal sides.
This is expressed in chapter 5 of Manu smriti in mantra 60, which states, सपिण्डता तु पुरुषे सप्तमे विनिवर्तते । समानोदकभावस्तु जन्मनाम्नोरवेदने, which means that sapinda ends after seven generations.
[13] While the gotras are almost universally used for excluding marriages that would be traditionally incestuous, they are not legally recognized as such, although those within "degrees of prohibited relationship" or who are "sapinda" are not permitted to marry.
[15] In the 1945 case of Madhavrao vs Raghavendrarao, which involved a Deshastha Brahmin couple, the definition of gotra as descending from eight sages and then branching out to several families was thrown out by the Bombay High Court.
The court called the idea of Brahmin families descending from an unbroken line of common ancestors as indicated by the names of their respective gotras "impossible to accept."
The court also said that the material in the Hindu texts is so vast and full of contradictions that it is a near-impossible task to reduce it to order and coherence.