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ORIGIN OF BRAHMIN GOTRAS
triarchal prc-Aryan pcoplcs, but cven that thc absence of such cult-fusion helps Buddhism push the older unmatcd vcdic gods into thc background, in spitc of the grip maintained by vcdic ritual. For direct rcfcrcncc to an carlier stage without forbidden dcgrccs of marriage, wc sccm to have Ait. Brīh.iii.33.1 which spcaks of cvcrything as crcated out of thc incest of Prajapati with his own daughter. The incest, without naming Prajapati, gocs back to RV.x. 61.5-7, and must be much older. Ait. Brāh.vii.13 cvcn says, "thcrcforc a son his mother and sister mountcth," though such promiscuity must have belonged to a distant and repugnant past of the contemporary Aryans as shown by thc Yama-Yami dialoguc. Thc sun-god Pīşan is called 'lover of his own sister' in vi.55.4-5., whilc the gods actually marry him off to the sister Sürya · in vi.58.4. Both thc Achacmcnians and thic Sākyas had traditions of brother-, sister marriages. In thc Rgvcda thc minor caninc goddess Saramā (x.108; 1.62.3; 1.72.8; iii.31.6; iv.16.8; v.45.7-8) finds stolcn' cows as messenger of Indra. Thc tcrmination mā was not understood by the later pricsthood cxccpt as a ncgativc injunction, depriving thc namc of all mcaning. But thc list of female. dcitics or dcmons whose names so terminato incrcascs immcdiately after the Rgvcdic pcriod : Uma, Rusamā (Pañc. Brāh. xxv.13.4), Rumā, Pulomā, Ramā, Halima (Mbh.3.217.9) cto; they arc undoubtedly mother-goddesscs2 at onc stage of thcir mythological cxistcncc. In x. 40 thc lcviratc is clcarly mentioned: ko vá Sayulrü vidhaveva devaram maryam na yoșā krņute sadhastha ü, but the very word ? for widow and the institution of widowhood shows us that thc Aryans had long shaken off their own traditions of group-marriage and mother-right. Thcrcforc, the direct references from the Rigveda which arc cited in thc following paragraphs arc much morc likely to represent absorption of prc-Aryan custom than an uncallcd-for reversion 10 ancient practicc.
My main argument is the following. A single child with many mothers is characteristic of a society in which group-marriage is the rulc. "A child gives the namc of mother not only to her who borc him but also to all his maternal aunts. A Europcan not familiar with thcsc relationships is surpriscd when he hcars a native (of New Britain) boasting of having thrcc mothers. His confusion is incrcascd when the alleged thrcc mothers stoutly asscrt ‘amilal ga kava iva, all thrcc of us borc him”. This is quoted from J.G. I'razcr's Tolemism And Exogamy, (London 1910, vol, 1, p.305, focinotc), bcing itself apparently taken from P.A.Klcintitschen's Die Küstenbewohner der Gazelle-halbinsel. Wc shall now proceed to show just this attitude in somc hymns of thc Rgvcda.
* Sarama's tracking down cattic stolen by thc Panis is unqucationably a later story, to explain a lengendary strisc. No Rgvccic hymn which refers to Sarama says anything about the cattle having lccn stolcn. The goddess presents a blunt, aggressive demand from Indra to the l'aņis, apparently for their own cows, in x. 308. The other rcfcrcnices gcncrally show that 'cows' can bc understood as rivcrs; best of all in vi, 10.8.
* For Mä as a mother-goddess, cf. Amarakośa 1.1.29 ; what conncction cxists with thc Hittite goddess of the same name is not known.
