Gaud Saraswat Brahmin
| Regions with significant populations | |
|---|---|
| Primary populations in Karnataka and Goa | |
| Religion | |
| Hinduism | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Saraswat Brahmins |
Goud (also spelt as Gaud or Gawd) Saraswat Brahmins are a Hindu Brahmin community in India and a part of the larger Saraswat Brahmin community. They belong to the Pancha (five) Gauda Brahmana groups. They are popularly referred to as GSBs. They primarily speak Konkani as their mother tongue, but they tend to be fluent in language of the region they are resident in. For example, those living in Karnataka also speak Tulu, and Kannada whereas those living in Maharashtra speak Marathi.
According to the mythological chronicle Sahyadrikhanda of the Skanda Purana, ninety-six Brahmin families belonging to ten gotras migrated to Goa from western India.Even if Parashurama is considered as a historical figure, the regionalisation of Brahmins had not taken place during his era and he had brought only Brahmins and not specifically Saraswat Brahmins. According to Bhau Daji and Dharmananda Damodar Kosambi, there is no connection between Parashurama and the migration of the Brahmins. The Sahyadrikhaṇḍa is a later inclusion in the original Sanskrit Skanda Puraṇa, not a part of the original Sanskrit text. The Parashurama legend serves as a symbol of the Sanskritisation that Goan culture experienced with the advent of Brahminical religion to the region. This was achieved to a certain extent through the agency of the Saraswat Brahmins who had migrated to Goa who sought to establish their hegemony.
Sahyadrikhanda mentions the original home of Saraswats as Tirhut. The section in which the Tirhut is mentioned has been tentatively dated to 1400 CE. A writer on the basis of the genealogy and chronology of Puranic sages has mentioned that Aryans reached Goa around 2500 BCE. This is based on a preconceived notion that Aryans and Saraswats were identical. Elsewhere in the same work the author has argued that Parashurama had brought only Brahmins and not specifically Saraswat Brahmins. Therefore, equating Aryans and Saraswats seems to be far-fetched. There is no agreement among scholars about the original home of Saraswats. The name by which these Brahmins have been designated clearly indicates that the river Saraswati had played an important role in their life. Even after the disappearance of the river, the Brahmins who had once inhabited the banks of river Saraswati retained the name of the region. There are evidences in history about the migration of the population from one region to another regions account of foreign invasions and sudden climatic changes. Recent researches in archaeology have shown that the Saraswati river dried up before 1000 BCE. For the study of the migration of the Saraswats to Konkan and Deccan, the linguistics provides corroborative evidence. The main line of Indo-Aryan linguistic expansion began much before 500 BCE.
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