Inter-racial marriages

The Atpur Inscription of Sakti-Kumara 16 dated Samvat 1034 (977 A.D.) mentions Guhadatta, a Brahmin from Ananda Pura, as the founder of the Guhila dynasty. In his family was born Bhatripatta, son of Khomana, who married a Rashtrakuta princess. Their son Allata married a Huna princess named Hariyadevi. The Jabbalpore Copper-plate Inscription of Yasahkarnadeva, of the Kalachuri dynasty of Chedi 17 describes Yasahkarnadeva as the son of King Karnadeva and Avalladevi, a Huna princess.

The eighth and ninth centuries have evidenced many such marriages though they came to be banned later, that is soon after the thirteenth century. 

In the laws of marriage gotra played a very important part. Laws were emphatically against the union of parties belonging to the same gotra. But lawgivers shifted their ground and though later Smritis declare that a woman 'separates from her gotra with the seventh step' of the Saptapadi ceremony, the earlier law-codes do not furnish any substantial evidence to corroborate the truth of the statement.

The meaning of the word 'gotra' changed from age to age. In the Rig-Veda it signified 'herd of cows' or cloud or mountain or a group of assembled persons. The Tandya Brahmana gives to gotra the modern sense of ancestry. Even in the Upanishads it is doubtful if the scope of the word covered marital relations. The present meaning of gotra is that 'he is the offspring of a Rishi or family of Rishis'. Baudhayana mentions seven Rishis-Vishvamitra, Bharadwaja, Jamadagni, Gautama, Atri, Vasishtha, Kasyapa. The descendants of these seven Rishis constituted themselves into different gotra.