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Theories about the original home of Goud Saraswat
Brahmin [G.S.B.] are a legion. That the word Saraswat is derived
from Saraswati, name of an ancient river is, however, more
or less certain. The river sprang from Himalayas and a number
of references to it are found in Rigveda and later Hindu religious
literatures like Mahabharata and Smrities. Several prayers
in Rigveda are addressed to the river Saraswati, inter alia,
invoking her grace and beseeching her not to compel the inhabitants
who had made the banks of the river their abode to leave her
fair banks to migrate to other territories. However, there
was a black famine in the region for twelve years due to which
the Brahmin families were forced to migrate to other regions
like Bengal, Bihar and Southern India. It is believed that
the saraswat community which settled in Bengal, then known
as Goud, derived the name Goud Saraswat Brahmins.
As for the community's reaching Goa, it is
said that in Tetrayug, there was a Saraswat Brahmin named
Jamdagni who was a great Ascetic (Rishi). He had a cow, known
as a Kamdhenu because she was endowed with the power of fulfilling
every wish. Once Sahastrarjun a King from Kshatriya (warrior)
community had gone to the forest for hunting, he found Jamadagni
Rishi's ashram and went there for resting. When he saw the
cow, Kamdhenu, he expressed a desire to possess it. The Rishi,
however, declined to part with it. The king in his arrogance,
killed the Rishi and also badly injured his wife, Renuka and
took away the cow. At that time the Rishi's son, Parshuram,
had gone away in the deep forest for performing Yagnya. There
he came to know of the terrible news. He rushed back to the
ashram and in his fury took a vow that he would annihilate
all kshatriyas from this earth. He fought fierce wars and
ultimately completed his vow. Thereafter he gifted the entire
earth conquered by him to Brahmins. He then felt that it was
not proper to live on the land gifted away by him. He, therefore,
went to the west of the Sahyadri mountain range and created
a new region called 'Shurparakha' for himself by pushing back
the western sea. Today a small area in the north Konkan is
called Surparaka (Sopare). In the Sahyadrikhand where there
is a description about the idols installed by Rishi Parshuram
in Konkan, Kuthhal has been referred to as 'Shurpark Kushasthalli'.
Before settling in the new place, Rishi Parshuram performed
a big Yagnya for which he brought from the Goud region 66
families of G.S.B. belonging to ten Gotras (linear ancestry)
viz. Bhardwaj, Koushik, Vatshya, Koundinya, Kashyap, Vasishtha,
Jamdagni, Vishwamitra, Gautam and Atri who were worshipping
the patron deities Mangirish, Mahadev, Mahalakshmi, Mhalasa,
Shantadurga, Nagesh and Saptkotishwar. These families brought
along with them idols of their patron deities. After the Yagnya
was successfully completed, Rishi Parshuram presented some
of the villages to these Brahmin families to enable them to
settle there. The GSB families installed their family deities
which they had brought with them in their own homes.
The place where these families first made home was called Saswad
Mahal. Over the years with the growth of the community, the
worship of the family deities assumed a social significance
and temples were built for these deities as well as for the
Gramdevata i.e. the deity which looks after the welfare of
the village, where they were worshiped by the community. A
brahmin, Lomsharma from Kaushika Gotra., got the village Kardalipur
(Keloshi) as a gift. He installed his family's patron deity
Goddess Shree Shantadurga devi in that village. The brahmins
Devasharma and Shivsharma from the Vatsya and Kaundinya gotra,
respectively got the village Kushasthali ( presently known
as Kudthali or Kuddal) where they installed their patron deity
Shree Mangesh (also known as Shree Mangirish).
The
brahmins who installed these deities, i.e. Lomsharma, Devsharma
and Shivsharma are known as the Mul Purusha (linear ancestor)
of the Kaushika, Vatsya and Kaundinya Gotra respectively.
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