Purely scientific

Hello readers

Hope you guys are doing well.

The intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.

The above definition is what is called as science.

I had been to my cousin’s wedding recently as you know the pass time these days if you don’t meet any people of your own age group is your ‘smart phone’ I know we could talk to some elders as well, in my case I chose my phone.

From the beginning when I started reading the general anthropology which was a part of my syllabus embedded in various subjects in the various levels of my education, I was fascinated how the older generations recorded, communicated and transferred information.

Particularly talking about Hinduism and the Vedas, I was reading about the family divisional systems as described in the Vedas the reason why I wanted to find this out is that, I actually wanted find out the actual origin of my own cult, just thinking about makes you feel happy try it, imagine your forefathers just being nomads in a lonely land and today you, in this silicon era!

So I found this beautiful and informative article about, the gotra system or clans, so to start from the basics what do we mean by Gotra or a clan you can call it a tribe or a group and also a root, so let us keep it as a representation of a group of people.

The time line is the mid of 1st millennium BCE (Before Christ era) and this is the first evidence of the existence of the gotra system, in Vedic India.

For example if we take a gotra called the Kashaya gotra it means that the people under the name of this gotra are direct descends of this maharishi or the great sage.

According to Indian mythology these  maharishis are considered the direct descendants of Lord Brahma  they are: Gautama, Bharadvaja, Vishvamitra, Jamadagni, Vasishtha, Kashyapa, Atri, Aghamarshana and Kaushika, so almost all Hindus who are defined by a gotra are considered to be the descendent of one of these Rishis, this was followed by Kula, and vamsha which stands for group of people performing rituals in a similar way and the dynasty which carry them forward.

Let me come to the scientific part of the subject, let us think for while why did the ancient Indians make this system of gotra, Kula and vamsha the answer is startling but impressive the motive behind this system is to curb inbreeding or incest (marriage of siblings) you know I was not shocked about the word incest, but as seriously was baffled by the level of knowledge and understanding those people because of whom we have a life today had.

Come-on the bad effects of close marriage and cross-cousin marriages is being discouraged by the English medicine since recently though the bible also is against cross cousin marriages they were still taking place.

The statistics show that there are some selected families in India who suffered from close marriage issues compared to the western countries this is because people in India are still following the old procedure of marriage atleast majority of them do, by comparing the birth charts, Kula, Gotra the progeny is made stronger which is convergent aimed at continuing the generation of that clan or group.

Simple but effective, yes these were the types of methods our great forefathers followed.

The identity

If someone asks you to introduce yourself, you would end up saying your name, your qualification and so on, what did the Brahmins do to identity themselves?

Well they created short notes which would identify them and they call it Pravara.

A Pravara consists of Rishis of whom he is a descendent of usually 3 Rishis are mentioned in the Pravara, sometimes even six Rishis can also be mentioned.

Kapi: Angirasa, Aamahaiya,Orukshaya

The grouping system of the ancients were brilliant and they targeted he cast system only to differentiate people based on their profession, Alas this system has been misused badly and many classes of people are facing problems.

The Synopsis is that the modern generations should think before condemning any system which was made by people long ago, because we are living  today through their survival and cultural systems history otherwise who knows we may have ended up as the dinosaurs  

We should imbibe inspiring thoughts and should follow the righteous path. If this is done then progress is sure and certain.

­-Yajur Veda

Thanks for your time have a great week ahead.