Six? Goswamis

[Nityānanda dāsa]

Radhe Radhe! Danvat pranam to all!

Well...

Sad to say this symposium hasn't had a ton going on as of late. I've been an active non-participant too. Thankfully Madan Mohan Das-ji continues to share his beautiful poet-ification of various Bhakti texts! Many thanks to him for that!

I had this random idea or query about the "six" goswamis of Vrindavan. Why is it only six? Why are the six below given prominence over others...

Sri Rupa
Sanatana
Bhatta Raghunath
Jiva
Gopal Bhatta
Dasa Raghunath

Because there are several others, such as...

Lokanath
Bhugarbha
Gopal Guru
Krsnadas Kaviraj

I'm sure that vaishnavas such as Srila Narottama Das Thakur wasn't intentionally neglecting these other goswamis by writing about 'six' goswamis. But thought I'd ask about this to see what you all have to say. Also, one thing interesting to me is that some of these latter four mentioned goswamis we know a lot more about than say Bhatta Raghunath Goswami. So it makes me wonder why Bhatta Raghunath would take a seemingly more prominent place??

Your thoughts? 

[madanmohandas]

Probably Srinivasa Acarya's astakam established the 'six', but whether that was exclusive of others, who knows? Perhaps these were the six persons that influenced him the most. I often wondered about Raghunatha Bhatta Goswami as he left no writings. Gopala Bhatta was Srinivas's Guru. I suppose Sanatana, Rupa and Jiva adduced the doctrines. Perhaps your query is unanswerable. It seems to have something to do with establishing a new and independent Vaisnava tradition with authorised apostles, if I might use the term.