The three Udasin akhadas at Kushavarta

• Shri Panchayati Akhada Bada Udasin — the Bada Udasin akhada. Bada means the older, the big one.
• Shri Panchayati Akhada Naya Udasin — the Naya Udasin akhada. Naya means new.
• Shri Panchayati Akhada Nirmal — the Nirmal akhada. Nirmal means without stain, clean.

Panchayati means run by a panchayat, a council. The older and the newer Udasin akhada were already two a hundred and forty years ago: in the eighteen-eighties the orders that came to Trimbak for the twelve-yearly fair included the Udasis old and new, and the Nirmalas with them, who were Sikhs, while all the other orders there were worshippers of Shiva.

Each of the three has a seat elsewhere in the country that it comes to Trimbakeshwar from. The Bada Udasin akhada’s is at Krishnanagar in Prayag. The Naya Udasin akhada’s is at Kankhal in Haridwar, on the Ganga. The Nirmal akhada’s is at Kankhal too.

The Bada Udasin and the Naya Udasin akhadas have not published an account of themselves. Each has its seat, the one at Prayag and the other at Kankhal, each has its own ground at Trimbakeshwar, and each is one of the ten akhadas there for which the authority has approved works for this Kumbh. In 2015 the Bada Udasin akhada camped near Gautam Talav and the Naya Udasin akhada near Visoba Talav.

The Nirmal akhada has told its own history, and this is what it tells of itself.

It grew out of the Nirmala sect, which took its inspiration from Guru Nanak’s teaching and was established by Guru Gobind Singh in the seventeenth century, to live in purity and selflessness and to carry the teaching of the Guru Granth Sahib. The akhada itself, the Shri Panchayati Akhara Nirmal, was formed in 1862 at Patiala in Punjab, as a place where the Nirmala renouncers could be organised, could study and could serve. The Maharaja of Patiala had met the sadhu who became its first mahant some years before, on his way to Badrinath, and it was at the founding in Patiala that the sadhus of the panth appointed that first mahant to the highest seat of the order. A महंत mahant is the head of an akhada or of a math. Later the akhada made its headquarters at Kankhal in Haridwar, on the bank of the Ganga, and it grew branches and centres across the country. One of those branches was at Trimbakeshwar, and one of its mahants took office some time before the Kumbh at Trimbakeshwar of 1908.

Its sadhus keep their hair uncut and wear turbans, as Sikhs do. The order is open to people of every caste and background, on the condition of humility, dedication and a will to serve. Its mahants have been scholars of Sanskrit as much as of Gurbani, and some of them studied at Varanasi. Its teaching draws on the Guru Granth Sahib and on the Vedas together, and it holds talks, gatherings and fire rites to pass that teaching on. It gives संन्यास sannyas, the initiation into renunciation, under its own discipline. It looks after temples, ashrams and rest-houses across India, runs free kitchens and medical camps, and keeps schools for Vedic learning. It is the highest representative institution of the Nirmal Panth.

At a Kumbh the akhada sets up its camp, and inside it the sadhus recite the scriptures, meditate and give talks. On the bathing days it goes to the river in procession in its own dress, carrying the signs of its faith, and bathes. In 2015 its camp at Trimbakeshwar was near Gangasagar Talav.

The three Udasin akhadas are among the ten at Trimbakeshwar that each have ground of their own in the town, and for this Kumbh the authority has approved works on that ground: roads, toilets and bathrooms, a flagpole for the akhada’s flag, a compound wall and a kitchen, within a limit of five crore rupees for each of the main akhadas. The Shaiva akhadas has the rest of the ten and the same works, and the camps themselves are on Sadhugram.

The bathing is at Kushavarta, the square kund in the middle of Trimbakeshwar with steps on all four sides, and on a bathing day the ten akhadas come to it through the lanes of the town from their own grounds, each by its own route, and go on from the kund to the Trimbakeshwar temple. A कुण्ड kund is a tank or pool with stone sides and steps, fed by the river or a spring. The peshwai has the routes turn by turn, and the shahi snan has the days. In 2015 the Udasin akhadas’ camps were by the talavs, the ponds of the town, Gautam Talav, Visoba Talav and Gangasagar Talav. A visitor may walk through a camp, watch, and make a small offering, and should not photograph a sadhu who has not agreed to it.