GOSAIN, Goswami. From Go, SANSK., sense or passion, and Sen, master. One who masters or restrains his passions ; modified vernacularly, as Gosain. Sects of Hindus, whose disciples are styled Gosami, Sami, Swami, Gosali, Gosavi, Gosayi, etc. A religious mendicant in general. As a special name, it is applied to very different classes of persons, identified only by their profess ing a religious and mendicant life. The most respectable are the reputod descendants spiritually of Sankaracharya, of whom there are ten chief branches, and who are thence also called the Das-nami, or ten-named Gosains, attaching to the ordinary Hindu appellation one of the terms,— Tirtha, or shrine ; Asnuna, an order ; Vana and A.nulya, a wood ; Saraswati, the goddess of elo quence ; Bharati, the goddess of speech ; Puri, a city ; Giri and Parvata, a bill ; Sagara, the ocean ;—as Awanda-gir, Vidyananya, Puran-gir, Rama-asrama. These, although they are occa sionally vagrants, are usually assembled in maths, or conventual residences under a superior. Some of their establishments are liberally endowed, and of great reputed sanctity, particularly that of Sringeri in the Western Ghats, near the sources of the Tungabhadra, said to have been founded by Sankara himself. Individuals of the three pure castes are admissible, and in some cases Sudiss also ; but as they profess celibacy, their numbers are in part recruited by the purchase or adoption of boys at an early age.
The Das-nami Gosains worship preferentially Siva, of whom Sankara is said to have been an avatara, but many have been disting,uished as advocates of the Vedanta doctrines. One division of theta, termed Atits, differs from the more rigid Dandi Gosains, in following secular pursuits as traders and ministrant priests of temples. Some of them marry and settle, when they are termed Samyogi or Gharbbari. These Cosains, although met with in Upper India, are most numerous and influential in the south.
In Hindustan tbe tern) is more correctly applied to two different classes, both worshippers of Gosains of Gokul, who are descended from Valabhacharya, and, although religious cha racters, are allowed to marry and follow gecular pursuits ; and the Gosaina of Bengal, who are the disciples of Chaitanya, a native of Bengal, who instituted a new form of Vaislinava worship at the end of the 15th century. They also marry, and, like the Gokulashta, lead domestic and respectable lives. The term is also applied loosely to mere vagrants, some of whom wandered about formerly in armed gaug,s, and levied conbibutions forcibly on the villages, plundered them ; or now, coining singly or in small bodies, extort money by inflicting disgusting tortures upon themselves ; these sometimes go naked. .
Gosavin, female Gosain, Matta., one who, on arriving at years of discretion, adopts a life of continence and mendicancy.
Dauri Gosavi, Maim., a class of religious vag rants said to be disciples of Goraklmath, in which ease they are not properly Gosains but Jogis. They sing hymns in honour of Iffiairava, playing on the daura, or a small drum shaped like an hour-glass, whence their name Dauri, a player on the daura.
The ceremony observed at the initiation of a Gosain is as follows. The candidate is generally a boy, but may be an adult. At the Siva-ratri festival (in honour of Siva), water brought from a tamk, in which an image of the god has been deposited, is applied to the head of the novitiate, which is thereupon shaved. The guru, or spiri tual guide, whispers to the disciple a mantra or sacred text. In honour of the event, all the Gosains in the neighbourhood .assemble together, and give their new member their blessing ; and a sweetmeat called laddu, made very large, is dis tributed amongst them. The novitiate is now regarded as a Gosain ; but he does not' become a perfect ond until the Vijaiya Hon) has been per formed, at which a Gosain famous (or religion and learning gives him the original mantra of Siva. The ceremony generally occupies three (lays in Benares. On the first day the Gosain again shaved, leaving a tuft on the top of the head, called in Hindi Chundi, but in Sanskrit Shiklia. For that day lie is considered to be a Brahman, and is obliged to beg at a few houses. On the second day Ile is held to be a Brahma charya, and wears coloured garments, and also the janeo or sacred cord. On the third day the janeo is taken from him, and the chundi is cut off. The mantra of Siva is made known to him, and also the Rudri Gayatri (not the usual one daily pronounced by Brahmans). He is now a full Gosain or Wan-Parast, is removed from other persons, and abandons the secular world. Hence forth he is bound to observe all the tenets of the Gosains. The complete Gosains who have per formed the ceremony of Vijaiya Horn are celibates. It is customary, therefore, for men not to perform it until they are forty or fifty years of age, as it involves the abandonment of their wives and fainilies. Gosains will eat food in the houses of Brahmans and Rajputs only. At ,deatli tbeir bodies are not burned, but are either buried or thrown into the Gang,es.