View source for Gosayi or Goswami

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This article is an excerpt from<br/>
''' Castes and Tribes of Southern India ''' <br/>
By '' Edgar Thurston, C.I.E., '' <br/>
Superintendent, Madras Government Museum; Correspondant <br/>
Étranger, Société d’Anthropologie de Paris; Socio <br/>
Corrispondante, Societa,Romana di Anthropologia. <br/>
Assisted by ''K. Rangachari, M.A.,'' <br/> 
of the Madras Government Museum. <br/>

Government Press, Madras <br/> 
1909. <br/> 
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[[Category:India|G]]
[[Category:Communities|G]]

=Gōsāyi or Gōswāmi=

The Gōsāyis are immigrant religious mendicants from Northern and Western India. I gather from the Mysore Census Reports that “they mostly belong to the Dandi sub-division. The Gōsāyi is no caste; commonly any devotee is called a Gōsāyi, whether he lives a life of celibacy or not; whether he roams about the country collecting alms, or resides in a house like the rest of the people; whether he leads an idle existence, or employs himself in trade. The mark, however, that distinguishes all who bear this name is that they are devoted to a religious life. Some besmear their bodies with ashes, wear their hair dishevelled and uncombed, and in some instances coiled round the head like a snake or rope. They roam about the country in every direction, visiting especially spots   of reputed sanctity, and as a class are the pests of society and incorrigible rogues. Some of them can read, and a few may be learned; but for the most part they are stolidly ignorant. Most of them wear a yellowish cloth, by which they make themselves conspicuous. 

The Gōsāyis, although by profession belonging to the religious class, apply themselves nevertheless to commerce and trade. As merchants, bankers and tradesmen, they hold a very respectable position. They never marry. One of the chief peculiarities of this caste is that Brāhmans, Kshatriyās, Vaisyās, and Sūdras, the two former especially, may, if they choose, become Gōsāyis; but if they do so, and unite with the members of this fraternity in eating and drinking, holding full and free intercourse with them, they are cut off for ever from their own tribes. It is this circumstance which constitutes Gōsāyis a distinct and legitimate caste, and not merely a religious order. At death a horrible custom is observed. A cocoanut is broken on the head of the deceased by a person specially appointed for the purpose, until it is smashed to pieces. The body is then wrapped in a reddish cloth, and thrown into the Ganges. 


A partial explanation of this practice is furnished in Southern India. The final aim of Hindu religious life is Nirvāna or Mōksham in the next life, and this can only be attained by those holy men, whose life escapes, after smashing the skull, through the sushumnā nādi, a nerve so called, and supposed to pervade the crown of the head. The dying or dead Sanyāsi is considered to have led such a holy life as to have expired in the orthodox manner, and the fiction is kept up by breaking the skull post mortem, in mimicry of the guarantee of his passage to eternal bliss. Accordingly, the dead body of a Brāhman Sanyāsi in Southern India undergoes the  same process and is buried, but never burned or thrown into the river.”


A few Gōsāyis, at the Mysore census, returned gōtras, of which the chief were Achūta and Daridra (poverty-stricken). In the Madras Census Report, 1901, Mandula (medicine man) and Bāvāji are returned as a sub-division and synonym of Gōsāyi. The name Gūsē or Gusei is applied to Oriya Brāhmans owing to their right of acting as gurus or family priests.