II GOPAL 149 considerable proportion of them, however, have now taken to agriculture, and their proper traditional calling is to sell milk and butter, for which they keep buffaloes. Gopāl is a name of Krishna, and they consider themselves to be descended from the herdsmen of Brindaban. GOSAIN 1. Names for the Gosains. Gosain, Gusain, Sanniasi, Dasnāmi.1-A name for the ⚫ orders of religious mendicants of the Sivite sect, from which a caste has now developed. In 1911 the Gosains numbered a little over 40,000 persons in the Central Provinces and Berar, being distributed over all Districts. The name Gosain signifies either gao-swami, master of cows, or goswami, master of the senses. Its significance sometimes varies. Thus in Bengal the heads of Bairagi or Vaishnava monasteries are called Gosain, and the priests of the Vishnuite Vallabhachārya sect are known as Gokulastha Gosain. But over most of India, as in the Central Provinces, Gosain appears to be a name applied to members of the Sivite orders. Sanniāsi means one who abandons the desires of the world and the body. Properly every Brahman should become a Sanniāsi in the fourth stage or ashram of his life, when after marrying and begetting a son to celebrate his funeral rites in the second stage, he should retire to the forest, become a hermit and conquer all the appetites and passions of the body in the third stage. Thereafter, when 1 This article contains material from Mr. J. C. Oman's Mystics, Ascetics and Saints of India, Sir E. Maclagan's Punjab Census Report, 1891, and Dr. J. N. Bhattacharya's Hindu Castes and Sects (Calcutta, Messrs. Thacker, Spink and Co.). PART II THE TEN ORDERS 151 the process of mortification is complete he should beg his bread as a Sanniāsi. But only those who enter the religious orders now become Sanniasis, and the name is therefore confined to them. Dasnāmi means the ten names, and refers to the ten orders in which the Gosains or Sivite anchorites are commonly classified. Sādhu is a generic term for a religious mendicant. The name Gosain is now more commonly applied to the married members of the caste, who pursue ordinary avocations, while the mendicants are known as Sadhu or Sanniāsi. The Gosains consider their founder to have been Shankar 2. The ten Acharya, the great apostle of the revival of the worship of orders. Siva in southern India, who lived between the eighth and tenth centuries. He had four disciples from whom the ten orders of Gosains are derived. These are commonly stated as follows: 1. Giri (peak or top of a hill). 3. Parbat (a mountain). 4. Sagar (the ocean). 5. Ban or Van (the forest). 6. Tīrtha (a shrine of pilgrimage). 7. Bharthi (the goddess of speech). 8. Saraswati (the goddess of learning). 10. Ashrām (a hermitage). The names may perhaps be held to refer to the different. places in which the members of each order would pursue their austerities. The different orders have their head quarters at great shrines. The Saraswati, Bhārthi and Puri orders are supposed to be attached to the monastery at Sringeri in Mysore; the Tirtha and Ashrām to that at Dwarka in Gujarāt; the Ban and Aranya to the Govardhan monastery at Puri; and the Giri, Parbat and Sāgara to the shrine of Badrinath in the Himalayas. Dandi is sometimes shown as one of the ten orders, but it seems to be the special designation of certain ascetics who carry a staff and may belong to either the Tirtha, Ashram, Bharthi or Saraswati groups. Another name for Gosain |