Gosains

For other uses, seeGosain,Gossain,andGoswami.

Gosains(गोसाईं), who are also known asGossains,Gosines,Gossais,and asGoswamis,areHinduasceticsof India. The term can be translated asmaster of passion.They are sometimes referred to more generally asSannyasis.

Group of Gosains atBerarc.1862

The Gosains were powerful nomadic and mercenary trading groups who undertookpilgrimagesacross significant areas of land. While early British colonists inBengal Presidencyconsidered them to be marauding robbers, however they were important to urban economies and the development of wider trade networks.These itinerant religious mendicant groups could be very large in number, with figures in excess of 50,000 being probable for those headed by figures such asUmrao GiriandHimmat Bahadurin the late 1700s.Their numerical strength enabled them to be self-protecting and also to protect the trade routes that they used, regardless of who might have titular power in any given place.Their movements were often dictated by religious festivals, both of a localised village nature and of a more widely celebrated type, such asHoli.As these festivals were also occasions for seasonal markets, so the Gosains were able to move and trade goods between areas.

TheNawabs of Awadh,who ruledOudh Statein the 18th and 19th centuries and wereMuslimsuccessors to theMughal empire,recruited from Gosain martial brotherhoods as a way to assimilate influential Hindu elements of society and buttress their own sources of power. This attempt at creating a plural society was in sharp contrast to the zealotry that had characterised their predecessors.

References

Citations

Bibliography

• Bayly, C. A.(1988),Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars: North Indian Society in the Age of British Expansion, 1770-1870,Cambridge University Press,ISBN978-0-52131-054-3

Further reading

• Lorenzen, David N.(1978). "Warrior Ascetics in Indian History".Journal of the American Oriental Society.98(1): 61–75.doi:10.2307/600151.JSTOR600151.