Saraswat Brahmins gained their name from the famous, now extinct river, Saraswati. It is believed that the Saraswat community had first settled on the banks of this river. Later they migrated to
Punjab, Sindh, coastal towns of
Karnataka,
Kerala,
Maharashtra and
Uttar Pradesh, where the Saraswats got their names linked with those towns. Gowda Saraswats, Chitrapur Saraswats, Rajapur Saraswats, Kutch Saraswats and Punjabi Saraswats are the most famous among them.
The Vedas, the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the Bhagavata and Bhavishyottara Purana mention these Brahmins. It is also said that the great sage Saraswat Muni who resided on the banks of the Saraswati River, 8,000 years ago, is an ancestor of this community. They are devotees of goddess Saraswati.
