Before Genealogy? Marking Descent in the Inscriptions of Early Historic India
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/rosa.v5i1/2.245Keywords:
Aśoka, Brāhmī, gahapati, genealogy, gotras, inscriptions, kinship, metronymics, Sanskrit, womenAbstract
This paper examines the forms of descent recorded in the Brahmi inscriptions of early historic India (c. 300 bce–300 ce). I will argue that they afford us the possibility of viewing how non-noble groups traced kinship, lineage and ancestry. We see this in the development of kin networks; in the articulation of descent and proprietal control among landed and mercantile groups; in the patriarchal norms laid down for women; and in the use of metronymics and gotras. Finally, by tracing the slow emergence of genealogies in the inscriptional record, I show that they must be linked to changes in socio-economic, literary and political domains.
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