Research Summary

An interdisciplinary evaluation integrating Vedic textual analysis, anthropological kinship theory, and modern population genetics to assess whether the ancient Gotra system corresponds to biologically meaningful patterns of inheritance.

Abstract

The Gotra system represents one of the oldest lineage-based social institutions in the Indian subcontinent, historically employed to regulate marriage, kinship, and social continuity. In contemporary discourse, Gotra is frequently misunderstood—either romanticized as an early form of genetic science or dismissed as an irrational cultural remnant. This study undertakes an interdisciplinary evaluation of the Gotra system by integrating historical textual analysis, anthropological kinship theory, and contemporary population genetics. Classical Vedic and Dharmashastra sources are examined alongside modern genomic studies of South Asian populations to assess whether Gotra corresponds to biologically meaningful patterns of inheritance. The analysis demonstrates that Gotra functioned primarily as a culturally constructed exogamous framework intended to limit close-kin marriage rather than as a biological or hereditary classification system. Although its underlying rationale conceptually aligns with principles later formalized in population genetics—such as the avoidance of inbreeding and the promotion of genetic diversity—it lacks correspondence with modern genomic mechanisms of inheritance.

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