GOZAL
961
GRAAL
he gave the title singh (lion or soldier), and threaten- ed with excommunication and everlasting damnation all who would abandon tlie chief in a battle at the mo- ment of danger. For admission into the sect a kind of baptism was prescribed, and it was declared to be a meritorious act to bathe from time to time in the lake of Amritsir. Govinda declared that he would be ev- erywhere where five of his disciples would be assem- bled ; and he introduced a kind of council, at which the prominent chiefs met to discuss public affairs. Go- vinda gained many converts for the sect of the Sikhs. His relative. Ram liae, who disputed with him the title guru, was put to death by his order. Having become involved in a war with the Mongols, he twice defeated them ; but finally, as all his allies abandoned him, he had to withdraw into the interior of his states. While he endeavored to defend his strongholds, all his chil- dren perished. When the last stronghold, Tchamkor, fell, he made good his escape in the disguise of a dervish, and safely reached the desert of Bhutinda. Having been joined by many of his adherents, he was able to repulse his enemies. He finally accepted an invitation to the court of the Great Mogul Aurungzebe ; but, be- fore he reached Delhi, Aurungzebe died ; but the suc- cessor of the latter, Bahadur Shah, received him with marked honor, and is said to have made him governor of a province in the valley of the Godavery. There he died ^on after. The Sikhs regard Govinda as supe- rior to the preceding gurus, and none of his successors has been deemed worthy to bear the title. Govinda is the author of a part of Deswen Padshah lea Greuth (Bo ik of the Tenth King), one of the sacred books of the Sikhs, which is written in Hindoo verses, with a con- clusion in the Persian language. Of the sixteen parts of this work, the five first and a portion of the sixth are from Govinda. He also made additions to the other sacred book of the Sikhs, the Greuth (Book), a collection of sentences of several gurus. Besides these works, he wrote Eehet nameh (Book of Rules) and Ten- hha nameh (Book of Restrictions). — Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Gmerale, xxi, 506 sq. ; McGregor, History of the Sikhs, vol. i. (A. J. S.)
Gozal. See Fledgling.
Go'zan (Heb. Gozan, "Tin, according to Gesenius, quarry; according to Furst,yb?Y;; Sept. Ttti^av [v. r. Foi^ap and Xw^dfj]), the tract to which the Israelites were carried away captive by Pul, Tiglath-Pileser, and Shalmaneser, or possibly Sargon (2 Kings xvii, G ; 1 Chron. v, 2G). It is also mentioned as a region of Central Asia, subject to the Assyrians (2 Kings xix, 12 ; Isa. xxxvii, 12), situated on the Habor (2 Kings xvii, 6; xviii, 11). Ptolemy, in his description of Media, mentions a town called Gatizania (Geoyr. vi, 2, 10), situated between the Zagros mountains and the Caspian Sea. Bochart iOjyp. i, 194) and others (so Kosenmuller, Bibl. Geoyr. I, ii, 102) have attempted to identify this town with Gozan. Rennell further states that the river Gozan (1 Chron. v, 26) is the modern Kizil Ozim, which rises near Sinna, in the eastern part of the Zagros chain, and, after a winding course, joins the Sefid-rud, which flows into the Caspian (Geoyraphy of Herodotus, i, 521, 2d ed. ; sec also Ritter, Erdkunde, viii, 615 ; Ker Porter, Travels, i, 267 ; Kinnier, Memoir on the Persian Empire, p. 121 ; ]\Ioricr's Second Journey, i, 267). This theory, however, places Gozan too far east for the requirements of the Scripture narrative. Dr. Grant supposes that the word Gozan signifies " pas- lure," and is the same as the modern Gozan, the name given by the Nestorians to all the highlands of Assyria which afford pasturage to their flocks. lie thinks that the ancient province of Gozan embraced the mountain- ous region east of the Tigris, through which the Kha- bur and the Zab flow {Nestorian Christians, p. 125 sq.). A close examination of the notices in Scripture, and a comparison of them with the Geography of Ptolemv and modern researches, enable us to fix, with a high III.— P p p
degree of probabilit}', the true position of Gozan. It appears from 2 Kings xvii, 6 (also xviii, 11), that Go- zan was in Ass3'ria, which is there distinguished from Media; andthatHabor was a "river of Gozan." There can be little doubt that the Habor is identical with the Khabiir of Mesopotamia. See Habor. Gozan must, therefore, have been in Mesopotamia. The words of 2 Kings xix, 12 appear to confirm this view, for there Gozan and Haran are grouped together, and we know that Hai'an is in Mesopotamia. The conjunction of Gozan with Haran or Harran in Isaiah (xxxvii, 12) is in entire agreement with the position here assigned to the former. As Gozan was the district on the Kha- bour, so Haran was that upon the Bilik, the next afflu- ent of the Euphrates. See Chakran. The Assyrian kings, having conquered the one, would naturally go on to the other. In 1 Chron. v, 26, Gozan is, by an erroneous rendering in the A.V., called a river, and is distinguished from Habor. The true explanation seems to be, that in this passage Habor is the name of a district, probably that watered by the lower Kha- bur; while the upper part of the same river, flowing through the province of Gozan, is called "tin '^l'3, the river of Gozan. Gozan seems to be mentioned on the cuneiform inscriptions (q. v.). Ptolemy states that Gauzanitis {VavZai'irTc) was one of the provinces of Mesopotamia adjoining Chalcitis {Geoyraph. v, 18, 4). The same province Strabo calls Myydonia (xvi, 1, 27), which may probably be, as suggested by Rawlinson, another form of the same name {Ancient Monarchies, i, 245), "0 being prefixed and t rendered into o. As we find Halah, Habor, and Haran grouped together in Mesopotamia ; as we find beside them a province call- ed Gauzanitis ; and as in Scripture Gozan is always mentioned in connection Avith the above places, we may safely conclude that Gozan and Gauzanitis are identical. Gauzanitis laj' along the southern declivi- ties of Mons Masius, and extended over the region watered bj' the upper Khabur and Jerujer rivers to tho ranges of Sinjar and Hamma. The greater part of it is an undulating plain, having a poor soil and scanty vegetation (Layard, Nineveh and Bcdiylon, p. 275). On the other hand, Mr. Layard describes the tract imme- diatelj' along the Khabur as one of remarkable fertilitj'' (ih. p. 227). — Kitto, s. V. ; Smith, s. v. See Captivity.