The three Vaishnav akhadas at Ramkund

Each of the three is an ani. अनी ani means an army, and it is the word the Vaishnav orders use for an akhada — Shri Panch Nirmohi Ani Akhada, Shri Panch Nirvani Ani Akhada, Shri Panch Digambar Ani Akhada. An ani is not one body but a whole that is made of parts. Under each ani there are sub-akhadas, and under those there are khalsas. A खालसा khalsa is a band of sadhus that comes under an akhada as a group, and one khalsa can be anything from a hundred or two hundred sadhus up to two thousand.

Across the three anis there are eighteen sub-akhadas — two under the Digambar, nine under the Nirvani, seven under the Nirmohi — and the khalsas run into the hundreds, about three hundred and fifty under the Digambar, seventy-five under the Nirvani and a hundred and seventy-five under the Nirmohi. Every one of them comes to the Godavari to bathe in a Simhastha year. The sadhus who come in from all over the country stay in their own order’s ground, and it is the local mahants, the ones who hold the seats at Nashik, who look after them, settle what has to be settled, and keep the camp running. A महंत mahant is the head of an akhada or of a math.

दिगंबर digambar means clothed in the directions, wearing nothing but the sky, and it is the akhada’s name even though its sadhus wear robes. This is what is told of it at Nashik. It was founded by Acharya Balanand for the defence of dharma, and it was made as an order of armed sadhus, so it is known as the akhada that carries weapons. It still walks to the shahi snan with its weapons, though now what the weapons are for is the display of them on the road.

Its main seat is at Ayodhya, and it has branches, where its sadhus sit, at Chitrakut, at Trikut, at Vrindavan and at Nashik. It is in two anis, the Shri Ramji Digambar Ani and the Shri Shyamji Digambar Ani. At Nashik it has two seats, one at Tapovan and one at the Panchmukhi Hanuman temple at Adgaon Naka, each with a mahant of its own.

The god its sadhus worship above all is Hanuman, and its flag is in five colours, black, yellow, white, green and red, one each for dharma, devotion, faith, protection and worship. Its khalsas fly the same flag. In 2015 the Digambar akhada looked after the sadhus’ medical care, the free kitchens and the lodging in the camp at Nashik, and kept up the talk with the district administration so that nothing in the camp came apart. For this Kumbh the authority has recorded it as one of the main akhadas at Nashik, and has approved works for lodging for the sadhus, the mahants and the pilgrims who come to it, within the limit of five crore rupees set for each of the main akhadas.

निर्वाणी nirvani comes from nirvan, the release, and this is how the name is told at Nashik: the pull of the senses is a dried-up fruit, and the one from whom that dried fruit has fallen away is nirvani. It is also called the akhada from which all pride has gone. Its seat is at Hanuman Gadhi in Ayodhya.

The Nirvani akhada has no seat of its own at Nashik. What it has in the town is the Khaki akhada, one of its anis, which comes under it and has its seat at Nag Chowk, and because of that the Khaki akhada is also called the Khaki Nirvani akhada. Khaki means a lathi, the long staff, and the Khaki akhada is known as an order that stands its ground. Its sadhus worship Ram, and Hanuman is the sign on its flag.

निर्मोही nirmohi means without moh, without the attachment that clouds the mind. The Nirmohi akhada has not published an account of itself.

Bairagi is another way of saying vairagi. Close by Ramkund there is a temple of Vitthal, and next to it, in the eighteen-eighties, was a math the Bairagis had built themselves about fifty years earlier, with rest-houses to the north and the west of it that were always full of Bairagis. Such a monastery is called a मठ math, the seat of a religious order. Inside the math were metal images, most of them of Ram, Lakshman and Sita. The temples of Nashik has the Vitthal temple and the story it tells.

At Nashik the Vaishnav akhadas camp at Tapovan, the forest on the river a little below Panchavati, where most of the sadhus who arrive at Nashik make their camp, and Sadhugram has the camp. Tapovan is the forest itself. On a bathing day the akhadas leave the camp and come down the shahi marg to Ramkund with their flags, one procession after another, and the Digambar akhada’s sadhus with their weapons among them. The peshwai has the route turn by turn, the shahi snan has the days, and Ramkund is where the road ends. Between the bathing days the Digambar akhada’s two seats are in the town, at Tapovan and at Adgaon Naka, and the Khaki akhada’s is at Nag Chowk.