epic marriage

[N. Ganesan]

K. A. Nilakanta Sastri, Cultural contacts between Aryans and
Dravidians. Bombay, 1967

p. 81 reads

"The book I have in mind is S. V. Karandikar's
Hindu exogamy (1929). The author has argued that gotra
or sept exogamy was unknown to Indo-Europeans, and even to
Indo-Iranians. ...
Greek, Roman and Persian customs have no parallel to
gotra exogamy. Karandikar suspects the influence of
non-brahman (pre-Aryan ?) totemic exogamy in the growing
rigidity of sept exogamy ...
The far-reaching scheme of Vedic pedigrees is the result of fusion
and standardization worked out by jurists (like varNa
samkara theory) having little in common with the simple
social units from which the gotras were originally derived.
Dravidians stoutly resisted the expansion of prohibited
degrees and refused to tamper with cross-cousin marriages.
Not so in North India where a puritanizing zeal has in
some socially ambitious castes outdone the Brahmins...
But his main conclusion is correct that gotra exogamy
is modelled on indigenous prototypes while
sapiNDa exgogamy is not.  .."

Regards,
N. Ganesan



______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com