Hindu Monastic Orders

Gathers the renunciate orders, monastic lineages and guru-led movements of Hindu and closely related Sant traditions, including the akharas of ascetic renunciates organized under the Dashanami Sampradaya and its Shaivite and allied branches, the Vaishnava and Shaivite maths and sampradayas, and the modern reform and devotional movements descending from a nineteenth or twentieth century teacher such as Ramakrishna or Yogananda. It also holds the Sant Mat lineages of northern India, whose teaching on a formless divine and a living guru draws on both Hindu and Sikh devotional currents but organizes as its own guru-led order rather than within Sikhism's own institutions. A member belongs here for its own renunciate discipline and lineage of initiation within these traditions, distinct from the Jain, Sikh and Buddhist monastic orders grouped separately.