Sadhus of India

Sadhus of India

When you will start your tour of India. Very often you will see old age person wearing saffron or orange color dress, roaming and wandering on the roads of India and begging. These people in saffron color dress are called Sadhus(a holy man), who have spent years in the caves of Himalaya or forests in the penance and austerity under the guidance of their Guru(Master).

Note - Most of the Sadhus are Yogis who practice Yoga and meditation, but all Yogis are not Sadhus.

Once they have got the knowledge of divine and practiced non attachment through Yoga and meditation. They leave caves of Himalayas and come under the society to share their knowledge with general public.

They share their knowledge with people and get alms in return. The holy book of Hinduism only allows a Sadhu (yogi) to beg not anybody else. This is how ancient Indians tried to stop the sense of profit making in education. They believed that education must be provide selflessly without any selfish reason. They did not want to create the market of education.

There are 4 to 5 million Sadhus in India. In 1970 first westerner became Sadhu Baba Rampuri (William A. Gans) from  California ,USA. He wrote a book - A journey into mystic India(Autobiography). If you are coming for India Tour for spirituality must read this book.

Sadhu/Yogi

Few SADHUS (YOGI) have taken renunciation in early life (at young age)and have never got married. They practice celibacy all their life.

Sadhu

But most of the sadhus have taken renunciation at the fourth stage of their life after 50 years. When they have fulfilled all their family needs. They had family for more then 25 years. Their daughter and son has got married and have started living an healthy life. This is the time for an Hindu to leave all attachments from worldly things.  As a Sadhu(Yogi), he will not stay at any one place for longer, he will keep wandering from one place to another, he will not possess anything except three things, a begging bowl, a stick and a small bag around his shoulder.

Being from an Hindu family I have visited so many ashrams to see Sadhus. My parents are unorthodox Hindus but they loved meeting sadhus. In my childhood I heard so many stories of these Sadhus(yogi) of their supernatural powers like Human Levitation, Invisibility and the ability to grow and shrink, ability to walk on water.

But surprisingly my parents never asked these sadhus to bless their son to become Sadhu. What all they wanted that their son should make name and fame in the worldly pleasures, ha ha ha  what an irony. Being an Hindu I have met numerous sadhus and I have many interesting stories of these Sadhus. When I lead my India Tours sometime during lunch and dinner I share these stories with my foreign tourists. They enjoy listening  these stories.

SADHU SECTS - 

1 - Shaivism         - worshipers of Shiva 

2 - Vaishavanism - worshipers of Vishnu

3 - Sakitism          - worshipers of Shakti (Goddess)

Different marks which Sadhus draw on their forehead

They also draw a mark on the forehead by which we can identify his sect. When you will be on my India tour I will explain you each mark. 

GOKUL 1757 - THE WAR OF NAGAS

Afghan lotera (Robber) Ahmad Shah Abdali invaded India in 1757 and  sent his Afghan army to loot everything from the temples of Mathura and Vrindavan (India). These muslim invaders were cutting heads of even children. Thousands of women jumped into river Yamuna to save themselves from rape and cruelty. 

Naga War

Over here the Naga Sadhus took the charge of safety of the innocent people from this Muslim army. 

Ten thousand(10,000) Naga Sadhus took over the sword against the Muslim army. 

One hundred thousand Afghan army was shouting "Ya ali" and ten thousand Naga sadhus were shouting "Har Har Mahadev". 

These Naga sadhus fought so furiously that half of the Afghan soldiers left the battle in the middle due to fear and half were dead. 

References -

Wikipedia
India by Duncan Baird publishers