The Saraswat community has four key Maths or religious sects–Kashi Math, Gokarn Math, Kavle Math & Chitrapur Math. Of these, the Kashi Math comprises the Gowd Saraswats of the Dakshina Kanara and Udupi districts of Karnataka, Mumbai, and the Cochin region of Kerala. The Gowd Saraswats of Uttara Kanara, Goa, and southern coastal Maharashtra follow the Gokarn Math as well as the Kavle Math. The Chitrapur Math is the preserve of the Chitrapur Saraswats
Saraswat Brahmins are said to have descended from a Brahmin caste mentioned in ancient Hindu scriptures as inhabiting the Saraswati River valley (joining the Ganga and Yamuna in Prayag). Brahmins of Kashmir, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, and Haryana are mostly Saraswat Brahmins. Many centuries back, the river Saraswati started vanishing underground and so the people on its banks started migrating to other parts of India. They migrated to Gowd Desh (Present day Bihar and Bengal) and later to the South-Konkan coast to Kerala – Hence the community derived the name Gowd Saraswat-spoken language being Konkani – the language of the inhabitants of the Konkan coast. It is said that 96 families of the Gowd (meaning northern) Saraswats came to the southern half of India and hence carried the appellation of ‘northern’ in the form of the word Gowd.
