I was reading a book on Hindu mythology today, and it refered to the 'Six Goswamis' as 'cow monks'
Quaint, especially since they were discussing Vrindavan as the home of Krishna's cow herding pasttimes, but I have a hard time believing this is where the term comes from.
Anyone have insights?
According to Monier-Williams,
go means, among other things, the following:
- an ox
- a cow
- cattle
- anything coming from or belonging to an ox or cow
- milk
- sun
- moon
- singer
- horse
- water
- an organ of sense
- eye
- a billion
- sky
- thunderbolt
- hairs of the body
- a region of the sky
- the earth
- mother
- speech
- voice
- note
svAmin means:
- owner
- proprietor
- master
- lord
- chief
- commander
- husband
- lover
- king
- prince
- spiritual preceptor
- learned Brahman or Pandit
- the image or temple of a god
Make your blend. However,
gosvAmin is given only two main meanings:
- the master or possessor of a cow or of cows
- a religious mendicant
The latter is derived from the combination of
go as "sense organs" and
svAmin as "master", he who has mastered his senses.
However,
go-svAmin rarely means a "cow monk", a "horse lover", a "thunderbolt owner" or a "singer prince".
Yes, of course 'Master of the senses' I've heard, but I didn't know
go- had that literal meaning.
I'll chock it up to the author trying to be 'cute', esp. since he should know better. It would have been one thing if he had developed the dual meaning of
go but he just threw the term in as a translation of
goswami.
Here's
the book, in case anyone was wondering. My local friendly used book dealer had a pristine copy for $14
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QUOTE(DharmaChakra @ Aug 31 2005, 08:40 PM)
I was reading a book on Hindu mythology today, and it refered to the 'Six Goswamis' as 'cow monks'
Quaint, especially since they were discussing Vrindavan as the home of Krishna's cow herding pasttimes, but I have a hard time believing this is where the term comes from.
Anyone have insights?
Not an etymology of the word Gosvami, but one
usage is that one had to be an abbot of a Math in order to be called a gosvami. Tulsidas Gosvami-ji is an example of this usage in Kashi.
Wow! Nice to see this!
Now I discovered that my batism name "Felipe" (horse lover) mean the same that Goswami! hehehehe
Very funny!
With love,
Horse-lover bliss dancer who give pleasure to Radha (Felipe/Swami Ramananda Rekkas).