The Renunciate Order Attributed to Shankara, and Its Warrior Regiments

The Dashanami Sampradaya is the principal order of Advaita Vedanta renunciates, and it contains within it something surprising: militant ascetics organised for combat.

Ten names

The tradition of ten names takes its foundation, by attribution, from the philosopher Adi Shankara in the eighth century. Its members take one of ten monastic surnames, such as Giri, Puri, Bharati, Tirtha and Saraswati, and it is associated with the four cardinal monasteries said to have been established by Shankara at Sringeri, Dwaraka, Puri and Badrinath. The attribution of the whole structure to Shankara is traditional and should be treated as such rather than as settled history.

The armed akharas

Alongside the settled scholar-ascetics the order includes armed naga regiments organised into akharas, the militant ascetics who historically defended pilgrimage sites and traders and who now lead the processions and ritual bathing of the Kumbh Mela. That a renunciate order committed to the illusoriness of the world should have maintained fighting regiments is one of the genuine paradoxes of Hindu monasticism, and it reflects the real conditions, contested pilgrimage revenues and insecurity, under which these orders actually operated.