/lit/ - Literature

>>16039842
There were even groups of ascetic Advaita monks who took up arms and would protect people from the depredations of Mughal and other Islamic soldiers. If the Neoplatonists and other pagan traditions of late antiquity had done the same they still might be around today.

>Among the Shaiva sadhus, the Dashanami Sampradaya belong to the Smarta Tradition. They are said to have been formed by the philosopher and renunciant Adi Shankara, believed to have lived in the 8th century CE, though the full history of the sect's formation is not clear. Among them are the Naga subgroups, naked sadhu known for carrying weapons like tridents, swords, canes, and spears. Said to have once functioned as an armed order to protect Hindus from the Mughal rulers, they were involved in a number of military defence campaigns.[16][17]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadhu#Hinduism

>In the 16th century, Madhusudana Saraswati of Bengal organised a section of the Naga (naked) tradition of armed sannyasis in order to protect Hindus from the tyranny of the Mughal rulers. These are also called Gusain, Gussain, Gosain, Gossain, Gosine, Gosavi, Sannyāsi.
>Warrior-ascetics could be found in Hinduism from at least the 1500s and as late as the 1700s,[26] although tradition attributes their creation to Sankaracharya[web 6]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dashanami_Sampradaya#Naga_Sadhus_akharas