From Goswami rajas to Goswami caste in Hyderabad

Abstract

Much has been written about Goswamis or Gosains as ascetics, but little has been written about their evolution into a caste, an endogamous marriage network with women and children. Coming from northern India to Hyderabad as sanyasis, male ascetics tracing lines of spiritual succession from guru to chela, Goswamis lived in maths, ostensibly without women or biological heirs. Goswami lineages established themselves as banking houses in Begum Bazar and leading Goswamis were termed Rajas because of their participation in the Nizam’s Mughlai administration and court culture. As modern educational and legal systems developed in Hyderabad and north Indian Goswami practices in British India began to influence Hyderabad’s Goswamis, they moved from Goswami law governing guru-chela successions and inheritances to Hindu family law governing marriage and inheritance. The nominally ascetic bankers and their dependents became householders following new occupations, developing an endogamous marriage network and self-identifying as a caste. Evidence about Gosains in Mirzapur and Varanasi strengthens the argument that educational and legal alternatives helped empower the women and children associated with the maths and develop a Goswami caste in Hyderabad.