mythos.lux.aeterna wrote:

 Naga Sadhus at Kumbh Mela

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.