Rishi Upagava

Upagava is known mainly as a name in gotra and pravara lists. The sources write it Aupagava, the grammarians' word for a descendant of Upagu. The Matsya Purana places Aupagava among the families of Vasishtha, in a list that also names Vyaghrapada, Vaiklava, Shadvalayana, Kapishthala, Katha and Yajnavalkya. It says that all of them have the pravara Vasishtha and may not marry within it. Nothing in the sources checked gives Upagava a life story, a teacher or a text. Families who give Upagava as their gotra keep the name as their link to his line.

1. Listed among the Vasishtha families: the Matsya Purana names Aupagava among the lineages of Vasishtha, with Vyaghrapada, Vaiklava, Shadvalayana and others, all said to share the pravara Vasishtha
2. Two Samans are called Aupagava: Monier-Williams records Aupagava as the name of two Samans in the Latyayana Shrauta Sutra, and Bohtlingk and Roth cite one in the Shadvimsha Brahmana, so the name was in use in the Samaveda ritual books

The Matsya Purana gives the Aupagavas the single pravara Vasishtha. A different set of Vasishtha families, among them Aupamanyu and Sankhayana, has a three-name pravara that includes Indrapramada in the Matsya Purana and in the pravara lists of the sutras. Later digests give other forms, and the sources checked do not agree on one. Who Upagu was, and when the family took his name, is not recorded.

• A forest hermitage