Gotra system

There are scientific facts about Gotra. Gotra is basically family lineage. And only used in marriage.

The Gotra is a system which associates a person with his most ancient or root ancestor in an unbroken male lineage.

For instance if a person says that he belongs to the Bharadwaja Gotra then it means that he traces back his male ancestry to the ancient Rishi (Saint or Seer) Bharadwaja. So Gotra refers to the Root Person in a person’s male lineage.

Most hindus practice this. Brahmins identify themselves with 8 great Rishis:

Angirasa

Atri

Gautam

Kashyapa

Bhrigu

Vasistha

Kutsa

Bharadwaja

The Rishis are called gotrakarin meaning root of gotra. Gotra means shed under cow. Today there are 49 gotra existing.

Gotra system does not get automatically passed down from Father to Daughter. Suppose a person with Gotra Angirasa has a Son. Now suppose the Son gets married to a girl whose father belongs to Gotra Kashyapa. The Gotra of the girl automatically is said to become Angirasa after her marriage even though her father belonged to Gotra Kashyapa.

The important rule is no two can marry in the same gotra.. why???

Marriage between the two same blood can cause genetic imbalance

This system was defined around 4th century. Unlike varnashram, gotra was as per the birth.

Famous gotra theory:

Humans have 23 pairs of Chromosomes and in each pair one Chromosome comes from the father and comes from the mother. So, there are 46 Chromosomes in every cell. Of these 23 pairs, there is one pair called the Sex Chromosomes which decide the gender of the person. If the resultant cell has XX sex chromosomes then the child will be a girl and if it is XY will be boy child. Although female chromosomes has no role in Gotra but plays more important role. Within the 23 pairs there is no chromosome that can take over Y chromosome. Does that mean male population will extinct?

Also the Y chromosome has lost 1393 Gene out of 1438. This is a big threat to human existence.

Same gotra marriage can lead to physical impairment, genetic damages

To save the lineage and catostrophy to human existence, gotra was organized.

So far more than 1,000 such diseases identified: cystic fibrosis, phenylketonuria, galactosemia, retinoblastoma, albinism, sickle-cell anemia, thalassemia, Tay-Sachs disease, autism, growth hormone deficiency, adenosine deaminase deficiency, and juvenile muscular dystrophy.

Gotra systems is not limited to one varna but all. A Brahmin and a shudra can share the same lineage or Gotra.