The Dasanami Samnyasis- The Integration of Ascetic Lineages into an Order

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It concerns me that some of the results of this research may be objected to by traditionalists. However, my intention from the outset was simply to explore an institution that I believe is not only important within the religious environment of South Asia, but which has a great deal to teach anyone who engages with it on its own terms. No disrespect is intended either towards the Hindu tradition or samunydais; but history sometimes reveals that which may be contrary to conventional understanding It also needs to be stated that the general conclusions of the research presented in this book concerning the history of samnyasi institutions may turn out to be quite wrong in crucial respects. Should anyone find fault with any of the information provided or present data that undermine the historical arguments presented, reasoned criticism is invited. Despite considerable reluctance, it was finally decided to present this study to the general reader.

To this author, it is also undeniably evident that some sadhu-s have acquired what may be described as 'special powers', however such complex phenomena may be characterised or explained. It is manifestly a consequence of the philosophy, discipline and religious perspective of the samnyasi that such powers may accrue. Although throughout this study attention has been devoted to the 'wordly' study of samnyasi institutions and history, I would urge the reader to bear in mind that there exists another and more subtle dimension of samnyasi life, a dimension that I believe is beyond the means of any kind of conventional understanding or academic explanation: Om Namo Narayana.

This book presents an account of the history and practices of Dasanamis, or Dasanami-Samnyasis, one of the largest of the orthodox sects of South Asian sadhu-s. Sadhu refers to someone who has, at least formally if not in practice, renounced family life and conventional means for making a livelihood. Under a guru, assisted by several Brahman pandit-s, the candidate passes through the samnyasa ritual, the abandoning of 'worldly' life, an important constituent of which is the performance of the initiate's own funeral rites. This relieves the renunciate's family of any future responsibility in that regard. Samnyasa entails not only the formal renunciation of worldly life, but simultaneously initiates the renunciate into the lineage of the sect to which the initiating guru belongs. During initiation into the Dasanamis (meaning 'he who has [one of the] ten names'), a Saira sect, the neophyte is given a new diksa ('initiation) name, the 'surname' being bestowed by an initiating guru with that particular Dasanami surname. The ten names are: Giri ('hill'), Puri ('town'), Bharati (learning'), Vana (or Ban) ('forest'), Parvata ('mountain'), Aranya ('forest/wilderness'), Sagara ('ocean'), Tirtha (pilgrimage-place'), Asrama ('hermitage'), and Saras- vati ('knowledge').

The sanunyasi acquires a new religious identity and is initiated into a parallel social world, with its own hierarchies and implicit codes of behaviour. In the case of a large renunciate sect, such as the Dasanamis, the renunciate also has potential access to an extensive network of matha-s ('monasteries') and asramas throughout India, which may provide food and shelter.