mythos.lux.aeterna wrote:

 Monastic communities of yogis have existed in India since the most archaic times and are mentioned often in the Ramayana and Mahabharata. But it was the eighth century philosopher-saint Adi Shankaracharya who founded the first community of militant monks — naked, ash covered ascetics — to defend the Shanatan Dharma, the moral law or natural order of the universe.