Wanderers, Warriors and Threshold: Situating Ascetic Militarism in Eighteenth Century South Asia

Abstract

South Asia witnessed a meteoric rise of the Hindu ascetics to the helm of political, commercial and most importantly military order at the turn of the eighteenth century. This coincided with a transitional time when many changes were unfolding in the sub-continent. Gradual decline of the centralized administration of the Mughal State widened the scope and opportunity for the wandering ascetics to flex their military muscle, as did for many other regional powers in Bengal, Awadh and in other parts of the empire. Wandering Hindu ascetics like Dasnamis, needs to be contextualized in the complexities of the eighteenth century Indian scenario as a threshold time. Lying in-between pre-colonial and colonial times it indeed carried the memories of the past, but also the seeds of the future. Routes of commerce gained a new currency under the leadership of both Indian and western traders, as did State authority through territorialisation of nuclear zones of power into regional kingdoms. A wide market for military labour had opened up in South Asia and people had begun to make their services available therein that included the peasantry. Perhaps such complexities called into order a complete recasting of spiritual, material and secular plane. The purpose of the present research paper will be to demonstrate how the Dasnamis, made an innovative addition to the military labour market by not only offering their military skill and services as a product available for sale, but also their spiritual and commercial services.

Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh (Hum.), Vol. 70(2), December 2025, pp. 193-214