The lineage of Pandit Basant Upadhyay
From Babuapur in Balia to Gadaipur in Ghazipur: a family set down in one chart and kept by hand across a century, from 1920 to today.
Pandit Basant Upadhyay left the villages of Babuapur and Kripalpur in the district of Balia and settled in Sherpur, in Ghazipur. From there the family moved once more, to Gadaipur in Ghazipur, where this record takes root.
Every name in the chart descends from that journey: 574 people across 17 generations, from that era down to the children of today.
Beyond names, a family keeps its rites: the rishi it descends from, the Vedic school it kept, the manuals its ceremonies follow, and the deities it holds.
The rishi-clan the family descends from. By tradition, one marries outside one's own gotra.
The Vedic school, or recension, the family followed in its recitation of the Veda.
The aphoristic ritual manual that guides how the family's ceremonies are performed.
The line of ancestral rishis invoked together at the family's rites.
The family's particular branch recorded among the Upadhyays.
A clan observance noted in the chart, tied to the Sun (Aditya).
The family's guardian deity: Narasimha, the lion-man avatar of Vishnu.
The family's guardian goddess: Parameshwari, the supreme Devi.
This chart is itself an heirloom, first set down in 1920, then copied, corrected, and carried forward by four generations of the family before being brought into digital form.
Presented under the guidance of Pandit Badrinarayan Upadhyay and written by his son, Dr. Jagannath Upadhyay, on Miti Phalgun Vadi Dwitiya, Samvat 1976 (the 24th of February, 1920), following the account of Devidayal Das, patwari.
Updated and rewritten by Dr. Jagannath Upadhyay.
Updated and rewritten once more by Er. Bhupendra Narayan Upadhyay and Pandit Birendra Narayan Upadhyay.
Drafted by Er. S. S. Upadhyay, son of Er. Bhupendra Upadhyay, and Er. Alok Upadhyay, son of the late Sukhdev Upadhyay.
Designed and developed by Ashutosh Upadhyay, s/o Dr. Ajit Kumar Upadhyay.