Several sources suggest that Pushyamitra was a Brahmin warrior and the 16th century Buddhist scholar Taranatha explicitly calls him a Brahmin king. However, the various sources offer differing suggestions about which Brahmin gotra (clan) Pushyamitra belonged to. A Puranic manuscript mentions persons who were born of "Shunga, a descendant of Bharadvaja, by a woman married in the family of Kata, a descendant of Vishvamitra". Based on this, K. P. Jayaswal theorized that Shunga was a Brahmin with two gotras ("dwaimushyayana" or "dvigotra"): his family traced their ancestry to both Bharadvaja and Vishvamitra lineages. The "Pravara Kanda" of the "Apastamba" mentions a "Shunga-Shaishiri" gotra. J. C. Ghosh theorized that the Shunga family derived from the Shunga of the Bharadvaja gotra, and the Shaishiri of the Vishvamitra gotra (Kata group).