But I think Thag10.1 does call her Gotami.
Just using your husband’s name in any form is seen so commonly throughout India, Sri Lanka, etc. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if this is what’s happening.
@Vaddha I don’t think it’s a mistake?
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I thought this could be the case but didn’t read all of it. That is quite similar lol! I know a lot of modern Jain texts tend to be rather late compilations, iirc. Someone more knowledgeable than I on the matter would have to jump in. It could very well be that this is referring to Gotama the Buddha though!
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Sorry yes, I didn’t read it properly, she goes to heaven so it can’t be Mahapajapati.
Indeed, yes. If, for the sake of argument, Gotama was a personal name, then due to his fame, his family members became knoiwn by it (possibly with derived forms like Gotami) then over time it would easily be taken as a family name.
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Yeah, I think this is a possibility.
@Suvira, you raise a good argument on Gotamī in reference to Māyā perhaps being a reference to her husband. In the case of Mahāpajāpati though, Gotamī is a personal name as well rather than a surname or clan name. So this would be a personal name being derived from a common gotra, which I’m not sure if that happens. Anyone know? Again, Gotamī/Gautami is an actual feminine personal name, same as Gautam/Gotama, even in modern times. So it being a personal name isn’t strange.
Part of this is, again, that it really just doesn’t make sense that the Buddha would have a Brahmin gotra. It’s really weird. And Ādicca is an accepted gotta as well both in the suttas and historically for the Sakyans, whereas gotama isn’t. I find it hard to reconcile this. It seems more plausible to me that Gotama was a personal name he went by that ended up being conflated with a family name and extended to other people perhaps as well. Or it was still understood as a personal name, but because this is what the Buddha was just known by, it was used as though it were the name from which one derives the names of his family members.
Mettā
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I know everyone says this, but I am not sure why. It was normal for there to be intermarriages, so why shouldn’t there be a case where a khattiya clan inherited a brahmin name?
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Well, as far as I know, the brahmin gotta would have to be inherited from an Aryan man marrying a khattiya daughter and becoming a ruler in non-Aryan lands. It’s possible, sure. But that would make them a brahmin, not a khattiya, from that point on in almost all cases—because the caste would then be inherited downwards through the family of the man. The Sakyans are also depicted as having an independent identity apart from the Vedic peoples, including their ancestors, descendants, and rulers, and this is backed up by what we know of the region outside of what the Buddhist texts say.
This is why people suggest(ed) that it must be inherited from brahmin priests. It’s the only way it could happen: the Sakyans took the gotra despite not being actual geneaological brahmins. But as the paper I cited suggests with some other authors, this is not attested anywhere near the time of the Buddha nor does it make sense with what we know the Sakyans/their identity as above.
That is Indrabhūti Gautama (Indabhūi Goyama), the greatest disciple of Mahāvīra, similar to Sāriputta in some respects, and to Ānanda in others. And yes, Gautama is the (Brahmin) gotra.
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Thank you! That’s helpful 
Any idea on the similarity to the Pārāyana there that @sujato pointed out?
Is this text considerably later/post-Buddhist, and perhaps doing some copying of Buddhist ideas?
Mettā
Some chapters in this sūtra are considered to be ‘early’, but I don’t know about this one, and nobody seems to know what ‘early’ means in the Jain context. A Buddhist is certain to find familiar similes, imagery and stories in the Jain scriptures, and even if a particular text is considered as ‘late’, its similes need not be.
Indrabhūti Gautama is a case in point: ever close to the Master, he was so attached to him that he only became an arihant after the Master’s demise… Sounds familiar? Naomi Appleton has compared some of the narratives shared by both traditions.
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Well, Moggaliputtatissa’s mum was Moggali, and he himself has been called Moggallana…
It’s kind of not as much a personal name as a patronym taken after marriage.
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Interesting. I’m going to start off with the skepticism: how likely is it that Moggallāna’s mother’s name was preserved—we can barely get the Buddha’s family members straight. It’s very possible that Moggali is just a derivation from Moggallāna’s name, just how Gotamī could be a derivation from Gotama’s name. This could be an example of that same phenomenon in either direction.
So did the Buddha inherit Gotama from his family, or did his family inherit the name Gotama from him?
The answer remains unclear to me as of now.
That said, there are some interesting things that have cropped up in relation to the name Gotama!
Bryan Levman, in his investigations of the Brahminization of Buddhism and the substratum of aboriginal, pre-Aryan cultural remnants in the early texts, discusses two main practices that seem to be hidden in some Buddhist narratives: tree worship and snake worship.
Now, in AN 4.67, we see a snake repelling charm endorsed by the Buddha. He speaks of four lineages of snakes there, one of them being … the “Kaṇhāgotamaka” lineage of snakes. This seems almost certainly related to aboriginal snake practices. Lineages and charms for snakes? The idea that the Vedic people’s got some of their snake ideas and imagery from the aboriginal groups is generally well attested and supported by the mainstream as well. The ‘kaṇhā’ part also seems interesting… "dark Gotamakas.’ We see this term ‘dark’ being used as an insult for non-Vedic / indigenous peoples by brahmins and in reference to ‘black’/‘dark’ hermits and sages with non-Aryan origins and characteristics (like ‘Asita’ in Snp 3.11, or just “Kaṇha” in DN 3). @sujato talks about this—and may know more—in his post on the Nālaka Sutta.
This also reminds me of the reference in the Jātakas 7/465 to the Sakyan girl whose mother (iirc) was named “Nagāmuṇḍa”—another reference to snakes, and to ‘muṇḍa,’ a word associated not only with the Munda tribe present in / underlying the culture of the Buddha’s homeland, but also a term referring to the appearance of sramanas associated with non-Aryan / indigenous religious practice.
We also see in AN 3.125 a Tree-Shrine (!) called the ‘Gotamaka’ shrine. Not only that, but it is set in Vesālī: a non-Aryan republic as well, seemingly in cahoots with the Sakyans. Tree shrines/worship! And more ‘gotamaka’!
Is it possible that Gotama was used by non-Aryan people’s as a lineage? Perhaps, as I suggested originally here, the Buddha’s name ‘Gotama’ is derived from his mother(s)—said to be sisters from Koliya—names? This would also explain the Sakyan Ādicca thing I believe. The Sakyans, and the Buddha’s father, were of the Ādicca khattiya gotta. But perhaps his mothers’ names were indeed related to Gotama. I still think it’s possible that his step-mother’s personal name was Gotamī and that the reference to Māyā as Gotamī is working backwards from all of the Gotamas and turning it into a patrilineal gotta. Or both mothers could have gotten the name ‘Gotamī’ from their father (a Gotama), perhaps, before being married off. After all, both Māyā and Mahāpajāpati were said to be sisters. But I’m not sure as of now.
Names of men being derived from their mother, as we discussed, is attested in the Mahabharata or, for instance, “Sāriputta” (son of Sāri). Gotama could easily be the masculine form of Gotamī, rather than Gotamī being the feminine of Gotama.
Not all certain, but some clues maybe!
Mettā
I take it for granted that any given Tissa who is literally named “Son of Moggali” had a mum called Moggali.
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My bad—I didn’t realize you were referring to Moggaliputtatissa of the Third Council. I thought you were referring to Mahāmoggallāna. I misread.
The latter part of my post is all about subverting the skepticism though and landing on the original likelihood that people being named after their mother could very well be the origin of ‘Gotama’ here.
Mettā
Actually, the Mahavastu says that Moggali was the father of Moggaliputtatissa anyway…but other commentary identifies Moggali as the mother of Mahamoggallana, it’s me who’s confused. 
Maybe it’s both. Moggali was the father, and Moggali is a derived name for the mother of Mahāmoggallāna via reverse engineering the name. IDK. This is all quite confusing lol.
Considering the intermarriage question, I think this may just be it? Again, IDK. It’s not clear to me how someone goes from the brahmin->khattiya caste, especially in a non-brahminical oligarchy. That said, the Sakyans being mixed, this could just be how their kingdom started, that is, people deemed khattiyas because they were mixed and in non-Aryan territory, and yet with some Vedic heritage and perhaps some inherited brahminical gotras. Ādicca is their dynastic lineage and shared cultural heritage, but their personal gotras may be Vedic.
Most Western people in colonized countries like the US or Australia have surnames from other cultures and yet are completely detached and inherit the customs and ideas from their nation. The Buddha and the other khattiyas of Shakya may have culturally been of the Ādicca dynasty, and yet had Brahminical gotras from past mixing with Aryans. Their homeland wasn’t predominantly Vedic, so this would mostly be irrelevant to their lives, and yet the name reflects the connection.
Mettā
How could we know for sure the Sakyans is a non-Vedic group?
Historical records from the Aryans and knowledge of Northern India at the time, etc. I’d recommend checking out the discussion in the post on Snp 3.11 Nālaka Sutta here recently by Bhante Sujato. In the comments there are some articles and discussion of this. Also, even this whole idea of a khattiya with a potentially brahminical gotta (Gotama) is itself super suggestive of the non-Aryan lands before the Vedic culture took over northern India.
Mettā
These are really interesting. I’ve never thought of the name gotama in connection with these likely pre-Aryan contexts before, but it’s pretty compelling.
So we have:
- a khattiya family called Gotama (unless it is after all a personal name)
- a snake family called “dark Gotamaka” (which BTW means “dark dark cow”!)
- A well-known Gotamaka shrine in Vesali (a shrine to that same snake/naga?)
Let’s add on to that the existence among the samanas of a “gotamaka”, bearing in mind that these are mostly pre- or non-brahmanical:
nigaṇṭho … muṇḍasāvako … jaṭilako … paribbājako … māgaṇḍiko … tedaṇḍiko … āruddhako … gotamako … devadhammiko
There’s also a Gotamaka Gorge near Rajagaha (pli-tv-bu-vb-ss8:1.4.25). So we have the name Gotamaka attested in Vesali and Rajagaha. Note too that the verses of the snake families prominently use the “eastern” or “magadhan” locative plural ending -ehi.
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According to Jain tradition, the Gautama here is Indrabhuti Gautama, a chief disciple of Mahavira from Brahmin caste. But his first name (Indrabhuti) is from commentaries and never mentioned in the early Jain sutras, so some people think his portrayal is taken from our Gotama the Buddha (or perhaps, the wildest theory, the Buddha was a Jain disciple before giving up the asceticism and discovering the Buddhist middle path):
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There is an unknown Sramana sect called Gotamaka mentioned in AN 5.301 among the well-known Nigantha (Jain) and Ajivaka sect. Perhaps the sect founder name is Gotama, but we cannot sure it is a personal name or family name. If I don’t mistake, Rhys Davis thought it was a sect founded by Devadatta…
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