Reform Campaign, and Competing Visions of Hindu Sangathan in Twentieth-Century India

Modern Asian Studies 52, 1 (2018) pp. 99–131.

C Cambridge University Press 2018
doi:10.1017/S0026749X17000671
Gurus and Gifting: Dana, the math

reform campaign, and competing visions of
Hindu sangathan in twentieth-century
India∗
M ALAVIKA KASTURI
Department of History, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

Email: malavika.kasturi@utoronto.ca
Abstract
From the early twentieth century, Hindu socio-religious and political bodies
debated the use that maths (monastic establishments) made of their wealth,
amassed in large part through dana (socio religious gifts). From the early
nineteenth century, Anglo Hindu law on inheritance, and thereafter the Religious
and Charitable Endowments Acts, had enabled the autonomy of maths by
classifying them as private religious corporations, not charitable endowments.
This article suggests that the math reform campaign between 1920 and 1940
in north India was impelled by the preoccupations of heterogeneous Hindu
political and socio-religious organizations with dana and its potential to fund
cultural and political projects regenerating an imagined Hindu socio-religious
community. Specifically, the Hindu Mahasabha yoked dana to its Hindu sangathan
(unity) campaign to strategically craft an integrated ‘Hindu public’ transcending
sampraday (religious traditions) to protect its interests from ‘external enemies’.
My discussion probes how the Hindu Mahasabha and its ‘reformist’ allies
urged the conversion of maths into public charitable trusts, or endowments
accountable to an ephemeral ‘Hindu public’ and the regulation of their
expenditure. Monastic orders, guru-based associations like the Bharat Dharma
Mahamandala, and the majority of orthodox Hindus successfully opposed this
campaign, defending the interests of maths and sampraday before and after
independence. In so doing, they challenged Hindu sangathan by articulating
alternative visions of the socio-religious publics and communities to be revitalized
through philanthropy. Through this discussion, the article charts the uneasy
∗
I would like to thank Sumathi Ramaswamy, Filippo Osella, and the anonymous
referees of Modern Asian Studies for their invaluable feedback on earlier drafts of this
article. The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the
Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi funded the research conducted for
this article.
99
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100 MALAVIKA KASTURI
relationship between monasticism and an emerging Hindu nationalist cultural

and political consciousness that remained fractured and internally contested.
Introduction
This article analyses early twentieth-century debates on philanthropy

between various Hindu associations and political formations in north
India that sought to regulate and redirect the wealth of Vaishnava,
Shakta, and Shaiva maths (monastic establishments) in order to
establish an ephemeral socio-religious and political imaginary called
the ‘Hindu public’. Maths in the United Provinces belonged to different
sampraday, or religious traditions of teaching and transmission from
monastic teachers (gurus and sanyasis) to disciples. By 1920, these
institutions were targeted by Hindu political organizations espousing
a Hindu ‘nationalist’ political consciousness, led by the Hindu
Mahasabha (hereafter Mahasabha), and influential socio-religious as-
sociations with political visions, notably the Arya Samaj and ‘moderate’
orthodox Hindus (Sanatanis) who claimed they were custodians of
‘traditional’ religion. In this period, members of monastic orders were
already in the eye of the storm. They were perceived as having ‘fallen’
from grace for abandoning the spiritual, ethical, and moral discipline
of asceticism, and they were held responsible for the decline of religion.
As part of this critique, gurus and sanyasis were castigated for ‘misusing’
gifts given to them by donors as dana (socio-religious gifts given for
the sake of spiritual benefit). The Mahasabha and its ‘reformist’
allies also criticized monastic orders for refusing to participate in
philanthropic projects enabling its sangathan (unity) campaign to
create an ‘integrated’ and militant Hindu political community to
protect its interests from ‘external’ threats, notably Muslims.
My narrative focuses on how gurus, their sectarian associations, and
an important strand of middle class orthodox Hindus opposed math
reform and criticisms of monasticism. Especially significant is the role
of the Bharat Dharma Mahamandala (hereafter Mahamandala) of
Banaras, an orthodox Hindu association led by ascetics. Between 1924
and 1931, the Mahamandala and its monastic supporters successfully
blocked efforts by the United Provinces Religious and Charitable
Endowments Committee to transform the legal status of maths in
the United Provinces from that of private, autonomous religious
corporations into public charitable endowments accountable to an
amorphous ‘Hindu public’, by substantially reworking the United
Provinces Religious and Charitable Endowments Acts. Through their
GURUS A N D G I F T I N G I N T W E N T I E T H - C E N T U R Y I N D I A 101
objections to math reform, the Mahamandala and its allies interrogated
the Mahasabha’s enunciation of Hindu sangathan. Significantly, such
engagements with dana and Hindu sangathan occurred alongside
parallel projects undertaken by many gurus to reinvigorate religion,
monastic orders, and alternative socio-religious publics through
philanthropy. These projects included the Mahamandala’s effort to
foster an orthodox ‘Hindu nation’ led by Brahmins and monastic
orders, the activities of guru-based associations to unify, reform, and
revitalize different sampraday, and the modest charities of smaller
maths. The goals, membership, and ambitions of these philanthropic
schemes varied. Against this backdrop, debates on the use and
abuse of dana by maths before and after 1947 indicate that the
definition and boundaries of the ‘Hindu public’ to be regenerated
through math wealth remained plural and contested. Broadly, my
examination of the campaign for math reform and its aftermath
points to the uneasy relationship between monasticism and a
fractured Hindu political consciousness from the early twentieth
century.
Before British rule, Shaiva (Dasnami and Nathyogi), Vaishnava,
and Shakta maths in north India played an important role in
institutionalizing various sampraday.1 Maths encompassing single
temples had heads called mahants (heads of monastic institutions)
who ordained chelas (disciples) through diksha (initiation). They also
included larger institutions called asthans or gaddis (thrones/seats)
connected to wide-reaching devotional, economic, and political
networks. Maths were conspicuous in major pilgrimage centres such
as Ayodhya, Banaras, Allahabad, and Mathura, and in smaller towns.
Monastic teachers and members of monastic orders, variously called
gurus, gosains, sadhus, sanyasis, and pirs, and their maths, were recipients
of dana, of which ‘religious gifts’ (ishta) comprised a small part. Dana
was a complex set of exchanges and strategies of giving inflected with
plural ritual, political, and cultural meanings.2 Further, dana belonged
to a larger corpus of individual and institutionalized exchanges,
1
R. Burghart, ‘The Founding of the Ramanandi Sect’, Ethnohistory 25:2 (1978),
pp. 121–39; W. Pinch, Warrior Ascetics and Indian Empires (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2006); I. Chatterjee, Forgotten Friends, Monks, Marriages and Memories
of North East India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2013); R. Datta, From
Hagiographies to Biographies Ramanuja in Tradition and History (New Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 2014).
2
M. Kasturi, ‘All Gifting is Sacred: the Sanatana Dharma Sabha Movement, Civil
Society and the Reform of Dana in Late Colonial India’, Indian Economic and Social
History Review (IESHR) 14:1 (2010), pp. 107–39.
which together formed a ‘gift economy’ that was organically linked

to markets and state-formation.3 By the eighteenth century it was
usual for devotees to give personalized gifts as bhent (offerings) or
guru dakshina (gift to the guru) to charismatic leaders attached to maths
and temples. Gurus in many traditions were regarded as siddhas (semi-
divine beings) with extraordinary powers and religious knowledge.4
Additionally, princely polities and elites granted revenue-free lands
to ascetic orders, mosques, and the tombs of Sufi pirs (saints) as
expressions of power and a mode of statecraft.5 Between the sixteenth
and eighteenth centuries prominent gurus were enriched by patrons
in recognition of their role as rajgurus (preceptors of princes) and
commanders of military akharas (armed regiments of ascetic orders).
As maths were multi-faceted religious, political, military, and economic
institutions, the gifts they received had unpredictable material and
social lives.6
Under British rule, maths and akharas reconfigured their position as
significant socio-religious centres, landholders, financial institutions,
and political stakeholders embedded in local and trans-local networks.
The East India Company sedentarized monastic orders, disbanded
akhara armies, and resumed properties. Despite these dislocations,
monastic institutions continued to benefit from the largesse of
devotees, including princes, big landlords, the middle classes, and
intermediate castes. For all patrons dana emerged as a significant
political and cultural field replete with opportunities to refashion
their cultural and political capital and identities, and to participate
in civil society projects articulated through the language and idiom of
religion. In the process, dana alternately contributed to their upward
social mobility or compensated for their declining political power.
Consequently, there was a rise in ‘sacred’ gifts to maths throughout
the United Provinces.7 As the Ramanandis emerged as the dominant
Vaishnava order in north India by the eighteenth century, their maths
3
A. Appadurai, ed., The Social Life of Things, Commodities in Cultural Perspective
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 1986). For the gift economy see Kasturi,
‘All Gifting is Sacred’, p. 110.
4
D. Gold, The Lord as Guru, Hindu Sants as North Indian Tradition (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1996); D. G. White, The Alchemical Body, Siddha Traditions in Medieval
India (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996).
5
J. Hawley, ‘The Four Sampradays: Ordering the Religious Past in Mughal North
India’, South Asian History and Culture 2:2 (2011), pp. 160–83.
6
B. Meyer, D. Morgan, C. Paine, and S. Plate, ‘The Origin and Mission of Material
Religion’, Religion 40:3 (2010), pp. 207–11.
7
Kasturi, ‘All Gifting is Sacred’, pp. 107–23.
and akharas benefited the most from their expanded devotional base
to the detriment of other Vaishnava traditions. Although Shaiva and
Shakta religious traditions were marginalized in north India, their
institutions continued to benefit from dana.8 Mahants from all sampraday
amalgamated monies within their financial portfolios in ways that
blurred boundaries between dana and wealth generated from other
sources.
Monastic orders utilized the special legal status accorded to
their religious institutions and their revenue-free ‘religious’ property
by British court judgments, precedents in Anglo-Hindu law on
inheritance and succession and the Endowments Acts (1863–1920)
to enhance their position. In particular, members of monastic
institutions took advantage of the contradictions embedded in
colonial law dealing with religious endowments. As I outline below,
despite the colonial state’s perception of religious charities and
institutions as unproductive and lacking in ‘public utility’, the
Endowments Acts’ definition of maths and akharas as autonomous,
private, religious ‘corporations’ subject to ‘peculiar usages’ reinforced
their independence from colonial legal intervention aimed at
regulating charities to ensure they were ‘useful’. Unlike other
public ‘secular’ and ‘religious’ endowments and charities, therefore,
monastic institutions were not transformed into self-regulating trusts
governed by committees answerable to courts, and were rarely
subject to the intense scrutiny of colonial law.9 Not surprisingly, the
United Provinces Religious and Charitable Endowments Committee,
constituted between 1924 and 1931, sought to transform wealthy
monastic institutions into ‘public’ charitable endowments accountable
to colonial courts and trust committees.
Initiatives for math reform comprise a neglected aspect of the
Mahasabha’s aggressive sangathan campaign seeking to unite a
‘divided’ Hindu community against imaginary Muslim aggressors.
Towards this end, the Mahasabha projected itself as a platform to
bring discordant voices and oppositional socio-religious organizations
8
W. Pinch, Peasants and Monks in British India (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1988).
9
M. Kasturi, ‘Asceticising Monastic Families, Ascetic Genealogies, Property Feuds
and Anglo-Hindu Law in Late Colonial India’, Modern Asian Studies 43:5 (2009),
pp. 1039–43; M. Kasturi, ‘“This Land is Mine”, Mahants, Civil Law and Political
Articulations of Hinduism in Twentieth Century North India’, in Filing Religion, State,
Hinduism and Courts of Law, ed. D. Berti, G. Tarrabout, and R. Voix (New Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 2016), pp. 230–59.
together. Its conception of a ‘Hindu public’ included achuts

(untouchables), ‘converts’, and ‘sects’ such as Sanatanists, the Arya
Samaj, the Brahmo Samaj, Buddhists, Jains, and Sikhs. Supported by
the Arya Samaj and a section of the Indian National Congress led
by Madan Mohan Malaviya, the Mahasabha in the United Provinces
aimed to weld its Hindu political community together through
strategic campaigns like math reform to control monastic properties.
Through public sphere debates on monasticism and philanthropy
between 1920 and 1931, the Mahasabha presented sampraday as an
obstacle to Hindu sangathan. It strategically foregrounded sangathan
in preference to Hindutva, the influential concept coined by V. D.
Savarkar in 1923 to define the overarching political, ideological,
territorial, and cultural basis of ‘Hinduness’. Nor did the Mahasabha
invoke the exclusionary idea of Hindu rashtra (nation), outlined by the
ideologues of the Rashtriya Swayam Sewak Sangh (hereafter RSS).10
The RSS was a parallel and independent volunteer organization
founded in 1925, which elaborated and developed Savarkar’s vision.
Instead, during the math reform campaign, the Mahasabha relied
purposely on the more nebulous, pliable notion of sangathan to appeal
to a broader audience comprising religious traditions, ‘sects’, and
castes.11
Between 1920 and 1931 a sizeable section of orthodox Hindus
and guru-based associations questioned, contested, and reframed
the Mahasabha’s engagement with Hindu sangathan and its political
community. ‘Moderate’ orthodox Hindus associated with Madan
Mohan Malaviya, one of the founding members of the Mahasabha,
endorsed sangathan. Other Sanatanis feared that the sangathan
campaign’s expansive understanding of a ‘Hindu public’ shorn of
sampraday, and its broad definition of who was a Hindu, threatened
the ‘orthodox way of life’. For monastic orders, in particular, the
Mahasabha’s conception of a ‘Hindu public’ threatened monasticism.
10
For a discussion of Hindutva, and the early history of the Hindu Mahasabha
and RSS see amongst others C. Jaffrelot, Hindu Nationalist Movement in Indian Politics
(New Delhi: Penguin Press, 1993); W. Gould, Hindu Nationalism and the Language of
Politics in Late Colonial India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); P. Bapu,
Hindu Mahasabha in North India, 1915–1930, Constructing Nation and History (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2011).
11
My analysis primarily focuses on the Hindu Mahasabha’s engagement with math
reform, not on the RSS and its associated bodies. Hence, while it charts the position of
the Mahasabha in relation to such Hindu nationalist bodies, an extended discussion
of the Sangh Parivar is beyond the scope of this article.
Gurus and members of maths defended the autonomy of their
institutions, foregrounded their efforts to reinvigorate and unify their
sampraday, and questioned Hindu sangathan from a number of different
platforms, including sectarian associations.
Important participants in these early twentieth-century debates
included orthodox Hindu associations, which were socio-religious and
political formations distinct from the Arya Samaj. However, common
to both the Arya Samaj and ‘traditional’ orthodox Hindus was the
belief in societal and religious regeneration through the revival of
a mythic Hindu past. Both also represented Hinduism as rational,
standardized, and homogenous, but with a difference. From the mid-
nineteenth century, the Arya Samaj reviled the Brahmanical orthodox
Hindus as obscurantists and ‘traditionalists’ intent on opposing its
efforts to replace a corrupt belief system with a pristine Vedic dharm
(religion).12 Rejecting this charge, Sanatanis claimed they were the
custodians of a spiritual philosophy and religion rooted in sanatana
dharma (the eternal religion). For Sanatanis, key aspects of orthodox
Hinduism included a commitment to gurus, varying engagements with
bhakti (devotionalism) that was either saguna (the belief that that
God had attributes) or nirguna (belief that God was formless), murti
puja (worship of deities), rituals, and a Brahmanical interpretation
of varnasramadharma (a social and moral order predicated on caste).
Importantly, orthodox Hindu associations remained a disaggregated
political and socio-religious formation suffused in pan-Vaishnava
idioms and religiosity, with notable exceptions like the Mahamandala.
Successful Sanatani periodicals like Kalyan published by the Gita Press
of Gorakhpur represented sanatana dharma as a seamless discourse. But
orthodox Hinduism was riven by internal tensions with respect to its
relationship with gurus and sampraday, and by extension its core tenets
and lived practices.13
The Mahamandala was the outcome of the ambivalent if
transformative engagement between monastic orders and ‘modern’
12
K. Jones, Arya Dharm, Hindu Consciousness in Nineteenth Century Punjab (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1976).
13
P. Lutgendorf, The Life of a Text, Performing the Ramcharitmanas of Tulsidas (New
Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1991); J. S. Hawley, ‘Sanatana Dharma as the
Twentieth Century Began: Two Textbooks Two Languages’, in Religion, Ancient to
Modern, Religion, Power and Community in India, ed. S. Dube (New Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 2009), pp. 312–36; A. Mukul, Gita Press and the Making of Hindu
India (New Delhi: Permanent Black Press, 2015).
Hindu socio-religious and political bodies.14 By the late nineteenth

century, upper caste Vaishnava and some Shaiva gurus and gosains
supported Din Dayal Sharma’s Bharat Dharma Mahamandal (1887),
the largest orthodox Hindu association in north India. Vaishnavism
initially informed the Mahamandal’s interpretation of sanatana dharma.
Gurus perceived the Mahamandal as more accommodating to religious
traditions than the Arya Samaj, which criticized all monastic orders
as propagators of ‘idolatry’ and ‘superstition’.15 While charismatic
leaders were given space and voice within the Mahamandal, they
did not set its agenda. Matters changed in 1901, when Swami
Gyanananda, a Shakta guru, and his chelas (disciples) and devotees
controversially ousted Din Dayal Sharma from the association.
Gyanananda was supported in this enterprise by key Dasnami gurus and
monastic orders. The new organization was renamed the Shri Bharat
Dharma Mahamandala and relocated from Mathura to Banaras.16 The
Mahamandala’s engagements with philanthropy occurred in a political
field inhabited by new local and regional guru-based associations
affiliated with different Shaiva and Vaishnava religious traditions and
maths. With the help of generous gifts from devotees, these associations
reconstituted their devotional publics through the circulation and
reception of shared texts, beliefs, and tenets, and new forms of civic
and political engagement.17 I suggest below that gurus such as Swami
Gyanananda remained robust religious, political, and cultural actors
in public sphere activities in British India. Like other early twentieth-
century charismatic leaders, Swami Gyanananda renegotiated his
individual, religious, and political subjectivity in conversation with
a wide range of interlocutors. He represented himself as a rational
14
For sampraday and modern Hinduism see Pinch, Peasants and Monks; V. Dalmia,
The Nationalisation of Hindu Traditions, Bharatendu Harishchandra and Nineteenth Century
Banaras (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997).
15
Dayanand Saraswati, Satyarth Prakash, XL-63 (New Delhi: Subodh Pocket Books,
2011).
16
M. Kasturi, ‘Sadhus, Sampradayas and Hindu Nationalism; The Dasnamis and
the Sri Bharat Dharma Mahamandala in the Early Twentieth Century’, New Delhi:
Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML) Occasional Paper, History and
Society, New Series, 79, 2015.
17
C. Novetzske, History, Bhakti and Public Memory, Namdev in Religious and Secular
Traditions (New Delhi: Permanent Black Press, 2009); F. Orsini, ‘Booklets and Sants,
Religious Publics and Literary History’, South Asia: The Journal of South Asian Studies
38:3 (2015), pp. 435–49.
‘modern’ guru in tune with the times, while simultaneously remaining
an object of veneration, a siddha, and a manifestation of the divine.18
Gurus and the Mahamandala objected to the indictment of
monasticism in discussions of philanthropy castigating gift-giving to
‘fallen sanyasis’.19 Such discussions occurred in a context in which
donors made dharmic gifts to specified sets of beneficiaries to revitalize
the moral fibre and sangathan of numerous jatis (communities),
samajs (societies), and ‘publics’. Reformists compared ‘vagrant’ sadhus
and ‘dissolute’ and rich mahants misusing dana unfavourably with
the ‘selfless’ monks from the Ramakrishna Math. The latter were
celebrated as social, spiritual, and political activists who repudiated
sectarian affiliations and loyalties, focusing instead on sewa (service)
to the general public through institutionalized forms of charity.20
Other sanyasis were blamed for their selfishness, immorality, and
weak religious fervour, and for ignoring dana’s potential for crafting
a unified Hindu political consciousness and community. Charismatic
leaders and their devotees viewed these criticisms as attacks upon
their sanctity, their sampraday, and their own engagements with
philanthropy. During the polarizing math reform campaign, monastic
orders and the Mahamandala opposed external efforts to regulate and
redirect math and akhara monies, and to discipline the morals of mahants
and gurus through populist campaigns and legal initiatives.
This article explicates its argument in three interconnected
sections. First, it scrutinizes how mahants appropriated the language
of colonial law to strengthen the autonomy of maths as discrete
‘private’ religious institutions, assert their individual rights to math
wealth, and engage selectively with charity. Second, it analyses the
role of dana in the enunciation of the Mahamandala’s orthodox
Hindu civil society vision driven by sampraday and sanatana dharma.
Third, it probes how concerns with Hindu sangathan drove and limited
the math reform campaign and shaped the way gurus and maths
18
My findings, building on the work of William Pinch, suggest that gurus were
vibrant political, social, and cultural actors in the British period, rather than in post-
colonial India as suggested by Aya Ikegame. In this context see Pinch, Peasants and
Monks, pp. 23–47 and A. Ikegame, ‘The Governing Guru, Hindu Mathas in Liberalising
India’, in The Guru in South Asia, New Interdisciplinary Perspectives, ed. A. Ikegame and J.
Copeman (London: Routledge, 2012), pp. 47–57.
19
C. Chakraborthy, Masculinity, Asceticism, Hinduism, Past and Present Imaginings in
India (New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2011); B. S. Scott, Spiritual Despots, Modern
Hinduism and the Genealogies of Self Rule (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016).
20
W. Berkerlegge, Swami Vivekananda and the Legacy of Service, A Study of the
Ramakrishna Math and Mission (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2006).
have engaged with philanthropy in more recent times. This article

suggests that dana encompassed a range of shifting political, cultural,
and ritual meanings. More broadly, its discussion of philanthropy
foregrounds how monastic orders, the Mahamandala, and orthodox
Hindus contested Hindu sangathan and a seemingly homogeneous
Hindu political consciousness preoccupied with defining ‘Hinduness’
and the Hindu ‘political community’.
Mahants, math wealth, and colonial law
Although the East India Company resumed revenue-free lands gifted

to maths in the United Provinces, monastic orders benefited from
an expansion in patronage and devotionalism. Maths and akharas
reconstituted their positions as religious and financial institutions in
local and trans-local networks under colonialism. Mahants successfully
utilized the position given to them first by East India Company
revenue law, which treated maths and their monies as revenue-
free charities established for pious purposes, and also by Anglo-
Hindu law on inheritance, which recognized that monastic orders
followed unique customs relating to the ownership and devolution
of property. Importantly, in the United Provinces colonial court
judgments and precedents on succession within monastic orders
bolstered the exclusive power of mahants over math wealth, including
their claims that such monies were personal property. Thereafter, the
United Provinces Religious Endowments Acts (1863–1920) reiterated
the autonomy of maths and akharas to manage and regulate their
wealth. The Endowments Acts troublingly separated ‘secular’ charities
directed towards public benefit from ‘religious’ endowments. Maths
and akharas deployed to their advantage the distinction made by the
Endowments Acts between ‘public’ religious endowments (‘owned’ by
idols and a public constituted by worshippers) and private institutions
like religious ‘corporations’ belonging to monastic orders like maths and
akharas, subject to their own special customs, practices, and regulatory
regimes. Mahants successfully navigated the Endowments Acts to
their advantage to ensure that monastic institutions remained self-
regulated bodies, largely bypassing the trust committees and judicial
schemes of management bedevilling other religious endowments.
Maths were wealthy institutions. Nineteenth-century gift deeds
drawn up by monastic orders indicate that their bhandaras (reserves,
store, or fund of wealth) comprised jewellery, cash, gold plate,
houses, land, and commercial properties and investments.21 The
Hanumangarhi math in Ayodhya, belonging to the Ramanandis, was
enriched by offerings of pilgrims and gifts of revenue-free lands
to mahants and bairagis.22 Money given to gosains associated with
Vaishnava, Shakta, and Shaiva maths was transformed into dhan
(wealth) as it was invested in complex financial portfolios. For
example, many Shaiva maths belonging to Dasnami sanyasis in the
Banaras Division operated as kothis (banking houses) lending money
to zamindars. Such maths bought, sold, and exchanged their shares in
encumbered estates amongst themselves, and litigated in civil and
revenue courts.23 Maths were also part of robust trading networks in
jewellery, spices, and drugs as far afield as Nepal.24 Often, they were
closely linked to prosperous parent akharas whose legal status under
British rule was largely that of private registered associations.25
Colonial courts placed great emphasis on mahants’ wills and
ikrarnamas (deeds of gift) as testamentary documents that established
the ‘peculiar’ usages of maths and akharas on succession and ownership
of property. In maths attached to akharas, mahants had more limited
powers. In 1899 colonial courts, ruling against the right of the
Dasnami mahants of gaddi Baba Baghambari in Allahabad to execute
‘personal’ promissory notes to the parent akhara, relied upon an
ikrarnama executed by one of its erstwhile mahants. In 1886, Mahant
Bhola Gir had directed that after his death his four disciples would
become co-managers of the Baghambari gaddi. He instructed that his
khas chela (chief disciple) Nepal Gir would become the gaddinashin, or
mahant. His remaining two chelas would be entered as managers of
particular shares in math properties in the revenue papers. To obviate
misunderstanding, he underscored that neither the mahant nor chelas
21
Agreement Executed by Gosain Tole Ram, 11 March 1880, and Judgment of
Sub-Judge of Agra, 14 September 1884, Krishna Das vs. Gosain Tole Ram, First
Appeal (F.A) 44/1885, Allahabad High Court Decided Civil Cases Record Room
(AHCDCCRC).
22
Faizabad, a Gazetteer, District Gazetteers of Agra and Oudh, Vol. 43 (Allahabad:
United Provinces Government Press, 1910), p. 62.
23
Collector, Mirzapur, to Officiating Assistant Secretary to Government, 29
October 1858, Commissioner’s Office, Banaras, List 2, Box 2, sl. 14, File 9/1858,
Uttar Pradesh Regional Archives, Banaras (UPRAB).
24
Gonda, a Gazetteer, District Gazetteers of Agra and Oudh, Vol. 44 (Allahabad:
United Provinces Government Press: 1910), p. 175.
25
See The Societies Registration Act, 1860 at http://bdlaws.minlaw.gov.bd/
print_sections_all.php?id=10, [accessed on 28 December 2017].
could partition or transfer properties belonging to the gaddi, as they

were not meant for ‘any person or any particular individual’.26
By contrast, the wills of the mahants of the Dasnami math and
kothi of Uttam Gir in Banaras demonstrate their gradual shift from
‘shared’ to individual strategies of ownership of math properties. In
1813, one Gangit Gir controversially invoked a document written by
his guru, Chaitanya Gir, the owner and founder of this eighteenth
century math and kothi. He claimed it designated him ‘the owner
and in possession of the entire estate up to this time without the
participation of anyone else’ after giving gifts to his guru bhais (brother
disciples). Subsequently, in 1828 Gangit Gir divided his banking
business between the two khas chelas of his two deceased disciples,
one Gauri Gir, the manager of his commercial affairs and Pem Gir.27
Gangit Gir chose Gauri Gir as his financial successor ‘in accordance
with the practice prevailing in the brotherhood’. He recommended
that when Pem Gir and his subordinate disciple Kashi Gir ‘separated’
from the ‘math sarkar’ they would each be given substantial financial
compensation.28 Both Pem Gir and Kashi Gir established their own
kothis in Banaras. Pem Gir’s will of 2 December 1839 again reiterated
that his khas chela Uttam Gir was the absolute owner of his estate
except the math. It ordered him to provide for his chelas and their
disciples as long as they ‘lived in agreement’.29
After Uttam Gir’s death, in 1865, a succession dispute between his
chela Ude Gir and ‘grand chela’ Sheodutt Gir ended after arbitration.
As a solution, the two disciples decided to remain in ‘joint possession’
of the math and business. Unhappy with the idea of ‘joint possession’
Sheodutt Gir expanded the absolute control of mahants over math
properties. In 1887, his will asserted he was the ‘exclusive owner’ of
Uttam Gir’s ancestral estate and his own properties. It also outlined
the rules of succession in this math in accordance with the rules
articulated by the founder of this guru-parampara order who
in the end determined that more than one disciple should not be initiated so
that there may not arise no [sic] disputes on account of joint rights and cause
ruin to property and wealth. Future gaddinashins should at least nominate
26
Parsotam Gir vs. Narbarda Gir (Privy Council, Feb 1899), Allahabad Law Journal
Report 21 (1900), p. 508.
27
Mayanand Gir vs. Parshottamanand Gir, F.A of 8 January 1943, Allahabad Law
Journal Report (1943), pp. 401–11.
28
Ikrarnama of Gangat Gir, quoted in ibid., p. 402.
29
Ikrarnama of Pem Gir, 2 December 1839, quoted in ibid., p. 403.
two successive descendants, i.e., their disciple and another fit disciple as the
disciple of their disciple to ensure succession. Succession in my line should
always be governed by the rules noted below. If the disciple of the gaddinashin is
unfit, the gaddinashin may disinherit him, and nominate his disciple’s disciple
as the successor to his gaddi and property . . . Be it also known that this system is
not against the principals (sic) of our sect.30
For all time to come, Sheodutt Gir gave future mahants absolute
power over ‘property acquired as a result of their personal efforts or
purchased and acquired from the profits of the ancestral property’.31
In north India, such shifts in mahants’ wills coincided with the
favourable slant of Anglo-Hindu law on property and inheritance
towards mahants’ rights to math wealth and the special position
given by the Endowments Acts to maths. When adjudicating suits
dealing with succession in maths, colonial courts rarely classified
such institutions as trusts and mahants as managers of endowments,
invoking time and again the position of monastic establishments
as religious corporations. Exceptional judgments included instances
in which sardar (head) maths treated mahants of their subordinate
maths as ‘managers’ answerable to the superior gaddi or if mahants
were connected to temples.32 By the early twentieth century, the
exceptional power of mahants to choose their successors was also
reiterated in revenue papers and wajib-ul-arzs (record of land rights and
customs) detailing inheritance practices within maths.33 Importantly,
mahants also took advantage of colonial courts’ reluctance to recognize
the centrality of sexuality in shaping asceticism. Anglo-Hindu law
on devolution divided monastic orders into householder (grihastha)
and celibate (nihang) orders. Often, members of celibate orders
‘married’ and their wives and children claimed math property. In such
cases, mahants deliberately invoked Anglo-Hindu law to successfully
delegitimize private and familial claims to property within maths.34
Despite the multiple claims on math properties, many mahants
established private waqfs (charities) to nurture sanyasis belonging to
their sampraday and their devotees. Such math charities were driven by
30
Will of Sheodutt Gir, dated 16 June 1887, quoted in ibid., p. 404.
31
Ibid.
32
Gauri Shankar Jati vs. Raghubans Jati, F.A. 28/1906, AHCCCDRR; Mahadeo
Bharti vs. Madho Rai and Others, F. A. 133/1929, AHCCCDRR.
33
Extract from the Riwaz–i-Am of Pergunna Haveli, Awadh, and District Faizabad
Relating to the Bairagis. Annexure to Case 13/1916, Central India Agency Records
(Judicial), Bundelkhand, File 323 B/1917, National Archives of India (NAI).
34
Kasturi, ‘Asceticising Monastic Families’, pp. 1070–79.
the desire to nurture monasticism and its devotional and patronage

networks. The circle of beneficiaries in most cases was very specific
and limited. For example, in a gift deed of 1887, Gosain Sheodutt Gir
of Tulsipur math in Banaras outlined five charities established by his
guru Uttam Gir. The first waqf comprised a gift of six houses in Banaras
to Brahmins as charity and another house donated to students for a
residence. In 1865, a second waqf granted a house in Banaras to sanyasis
as a dharamshala (resthouse) and established chattras (almshouses) to
feed ascetics. A third waqf was established to worship Mahadeo or Ridh
Nath from the income derived from the Baba Ridh Nath dharamshala
for travellers and devotees. The fourth and fifth waqfs also established
dharamshalas in various towns in the Banaras division for devotees and
sanyasis.35
By the early twentieth century, maths’ charitable portfolios
diversified somewhat. Often, the aims of some maths remained limited
to feeding sanyasis and students studying the Vedanta and holding
bhandaras (feasts) on specific days including the anniversaries of
their founder-gurus.36 Other maths and akharas began to broaden
their philanthropic activities to foster their relationships with their
members, devotees, and pilgrims. Many of them held bhandaras and
annasastras (soup kitchens) at the Kumbh and Magh melas (fairs) for the
‘general public’, ascetics, and lay devotees.37 Maths were institutional
actors that were deeply embedded in local power regimes. To attract
audiences outside their devotional base, more ambitious maths began
to establish public trusts supporting vidyapithas (Sanskrit schools),
universities, Ayurvedic dispensaries, and voluntary services.38
Furthermore, gurus who founded associations collected funds to
regenerate their own sampraday. The journals of different Vaishnava
and Shaiva religious traditions give us a glimpse of a world in
which gurus went on fundraising drives seeking monies from princely
donors. They wished to disseminate their teachings and establish
a spate of educational and charitable institutions for the lay and
ascetic members of their sampraday. Thus, Gosain Madhavacharya
who owned the Pushtimargi Gopal temple in Banaras took the
financial help of his mercantile devotees throughout north India
35
Mayanand Gir vs. Parshottamanand Gir, Allahabad Law Journal Report, pp. 404–5.
36
United Provinces Government Gazette, 13 January 1934 (Allahabad: United Provinces
Government Press, 1934), p. 70.
37
Leader, 26 January 1930, p. 12.
38
Dr Triveni Datt Tripathi and Swami Devanand Maharaj, Dharmic Matho Ka
Sangathan Tatha Karya (Varanasi, 1988), pp. 99–171.
to establish a society called the Vaishnav Vaibhav. Through this
association, Madhavacharya’s acharya parampara reached out to the
Vaishnav janta (Vaishnav public) to translate Pushtimargi texts for
Brahmin boys aspiring to be acharyas and propagated the tenets of
the tradition. Other regional bodies representing the interests of
particular sampraday were also increasingly significant players. The
Yogi Mahasabha (1924) established by the Nathyogis, to name one
example, managed and controlled all the properties and charities
associated with their sampraday.39
Internal tensions within sampraday limited the scope of their
charities. This is evident amongst the two strands of the Ramanandis.
By 1918, larger associations like the All India Vaishnava Mahasabha
representing the Brahmanical Ramanujis (or Sri- Vaishnavas) urged
rich donors to give dharmic gifts to the organization so it could educate,
organize, and strengthen the sampraday. Ramanuji gosains and acharyas
went on fundraising tours in British India and the princely states for
this purpose.40 As long as the Ramanujis and Ramanandis were part
of the same sampraday, Ramanuji maths, hostels, and soup kitchens
frowned upon commensality between castes. Ramanujis also insisted
on the pre-eminent position of Brahmin gosains within monastic
hierarchies. In turn, the open-caste Ramanandi sadhus claimed that
the Ramanuji Brahmin acharyas refused to dine and worship with
them. By the 1930s, the escalating tensions between the Ramanandis
and Ramanujis had ended in a formal sectarian split. By then, the
Ramanandis had founded the All India Vaishnava Sammelan in
Ayodhya to nurture the interests of their tradition’s maths and akharas.41
As the next section outlines, guru-based associations like the
Mahamandala tried to move beyond a charitable template favouring
particular sampraday to reach audiences comprising all orthodox
Hindus. Its ascetic organizer, Swami Gyanananda emphasized the
importance of dana in fostering an orthodox Hindu ‘nation’, led
by Brahmins and monastic orders and accommodating sampraday.
39
‘Swagatadhyakshya Shri Devdas Thakurdas Ka Bhashan’, Vaishnav Vaibhav 3:1
(Sambat 1982), pp. 16–19. On early twentieth century descriptions of the Yogi
Mahasabha see G. W. Briggs, Gorakhnath and the Kanphata Yogis, Indian edition (New
Delhi: Motilal Banararsidas Publishers, 2009).
40
‘Sri Vaishnav Samaroh, Kashi’, Mahasabha Patra ki Nitia’, Vaidic Sarvasra 4:12
(Allahabad: Triveni Printing Works, Sambat 1973), pp. 283–90.
41
Pinch, Peasants and Monks; P. Agrawal, ‘In Search of Ramanand, The Guru of
Kabir and Others’, in Ancient to Modern, Religion, Power and Community in India, ed. I.
Banerjee-Dube and S. Dube (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 152–67.
Concerned by the decline of asceticism, the Mahamandala

underscored the importance of redirecting the energies of reformed
sadhus to orthodox Hinduism. Its philanthropic activities were directed
at propagating the ‘orthodox way of life’ for Sanatanis and preparing
sadhus for their formidable task.
The Bharat Dharma Mahamandala, philanthropy, and the

orthodox Hindu nation
Swami Gyanananda began his journey as Jogeshwar Mukherjee, the

son of a wine merchant in Meerut.42 After his father’s death, he
became the chela of Swami Keshavanand Bharti, a Shakta guru famed
for his Tantric practices.43 According to his authorized biography,
published by the Mahamandala, after Swami Gyanananda became a
siddha he relocated to Mathura. There he formed an organization
called the Nigamagam Mandali.44 In 1901, Swami Gyanananda
controversially replaced Din Dayal Sharma as the General Secretary
of the orthodox Hindu Bharat Dharma Mahamandal (1887). The
Mahamandal was the largest and most influential nineteenth-century
Sanatani association in north India, whose enunciation of sanatana
dharma was articulated through a pan-Vaishnava idiom. Thereafter,
Swami Gyanananda became the head of the newly resurgent
Mahamandala, the head office of which was moved to Banaras.
Swami Gyanananda and his chelas and devotees transformed the
Mahamandala into an orthodox Hindu association led and dominated
by Dasnami and Shakta ascetics. Amongst these, Brahmin sanyasis
and gosains were the most prominent patrons of the association.
Despite his own sectarian affiliations, Swami Gyanananda’s writings
sought with limited success to propagate an understanding of sanatana
dharma, ‘integrating’ all philosophical approaches and all religious and
social systems.45 Initially, the Mahamandala had a tense relationship
with north Indian Vaishnava and orthodox Hindu associations,
which regarded Shaiva and Shakta traditions with derision and the
42
Pandit Govindshastri Dugvekar, Bhagwat Pujyapad Maharishi Swami Gyananandji
Maharaj Ka Jiwanvrith (Kashi: Shri Bharat Dharma Mahamandala Shastra Prakash
Vibhag, 1963), pp. 1–7.
43
Ibid., p. 166.
44
Ibid., pp. 154–205.
45
The World’s Eternal Religion, Publication Department, Shree Bharat Dharma
Mahamandala (Lucknow: Nawal Kishore Press, 1920), pp. 1–2.
Mahamandala as a ‘Shakta math’ intent upon marginalizing Vaishnava
monastic orders.46 However, as the math reform campaign escalated,
the association won the support of monastic orders from various
sampraday.
The Mahamandala clarified that it wished to rejuvenate the Hindu
‘social organism’ and ‘nation’ by rekindling its innate religious
spirit.47 The term ‘Hindu’ in Mahamandala publications referred
to those who believed in a social order ruled by Brahmanical codes
of varnasramadharma, presided over by Brahmins and ascetics.48 The
Mahamandala’s ‘national corporate body’ included a plethora of
religious associations representing different sections of Hindus such
as dharma sabhas, Shiv sabhas, Hari sabhas, Varnasrama Raksha sabhas,
caste associations, and panchayats (councils).49 The Mahamandala
invited all organizations to foster ‘national solidarity’ amongst
Hindus by disseminating sanatana dharma according to Vaidik, Smarta,
and Pauranic principles accommodating different sampraday.50 The
Mahamandala defined itself in opposition to another important strand
of orthodox Hindu associations founded by Din Dayal Sharma and
Malaviya after 1901. These associations propagated an interpretation
of sanatana dharma transcending sampraday.51 By the 1920s, the
Mahamandala accused Malaviya and his allies of compromising
orthodox Hinduism by espousing limited caste reform. After Malaviya
embraced the Mahasabha’s sangathan campaign, divisions sharpened
between these two strands of orthodox Hinduism.
Swami Gyanananda’s devotees comprised princes, zamindars,
merchants and middle class professionals, and Brahmin Vaishnava,
Shakta and Dasnami gosains were among his patrons and supporters.
They supported the Mahamandala in its ventures and undergirded its
articulation of elite norms of citizenship, sociality, and political order.
46
‘Bharat Dharma Mahamandala’, Vaidic Sarvasra, 5:1 (Allahabad: Triveni Printing
Works, Sambat 1972), p. 193.
47
Appendix A, Appeal Issued on Behalf of the BDMM issued by President, All
India Prathinidhi Sabha, BDMM, Foreign and Political Department, Notes, Secret-G,
March 1915, No. 1–5, NAI.
48
Report of BDMM for 1915, p. 75, Bharat Dharma Mahamandala Private
Institutional Collection, Banaras (BDMMPIC).
49
‘Notes for the Guidance of Dharma Pracharaks of the Samaj Hitakari Kosh’, The
Mahamandala Magazine, January 1925, p. 14.
50
Ibid., pp. 28–31.
51
All India Sanatana Dharma Mahasammelana Third Session at Lahore, Reception
Committee, 19 March 1917, 20 February 1916, Subject File (SF) 4, Din Dayal Sharma
Papers (DDSP), NMML.
Its rich patrons were clear about the societal dividends they wished to
gain from participating in the Mahamandala. They wished to shape
the fields of religion and politics as spaces of hegemony, power, and
cultural capital.52 In 1917, the loyalist Mahamandala emphasized that
it expressed the opinion of the Princes and ‘intelligent classes’ to guide
the masses towards the formation of right opinions and sentiments,
and ensure they understood their obligations towards pax Britannica.53
The Raja of Darbhanga, the President of the Mahamandala endorsed
its vision of a ‘stable’, evolutionary, and conservative social order
organized by a Brahmanical understanding of varnasramadharma.54 The
danpatras (gift-deeds) of Swami Gyanananda’s devotees suggest that
gifting was essential to crafting this vision.55
The Mahamandala was invested in reinvigorating dana to realize
its goals. In 1917 it argued that religious endowments were
the evolutionary product of the ‘Hindu’ tradition of dana.56 It
lamented that evils besetting contemporary religious gifting was
the consequence of selfish donors no longer caring about age-old
‘Hindu’ notions of philanthropy and public spirit.57 In 1917, the
Mahamandala organized a committee in Banaras comprising sanyasis,
mahants and local notables to ensure that almshouses gave food and
clothing to the ‘deserving’ poor.56 In step with conversations on dharmic
gifting, the Mahamandala invited its patrons to undertake national
work of benevolence for Brahmins and ‘touchable’ castes.57 From the
1920s, the Mahamandala, while asserting its loyalism, blamed British
rule for the decline of religious endowments sustained by private
52
Letter from Raja of Narsinghgarh to Maharaja of Indore, 22 February 1914,
Foreign and Political Department, Notes, Secret-G, March 1915, 1–5, NAI.
53
Report of BDMM for 1917, p. 17, BDMMPIC.
54
‘Opening Address of the Maharaja of Darbhanga at the Oriental Conference
Held at Banaras, 31 December 1943’, Hetukar Jha ed., Courage and Benevolence: The
Youngest Legislator of India, the Biography of the Honourable Maharajadhiraja Sir Kameshwar
Singh Bahadur of Darbhanga 1906–1962 (Darbhangha: Maharajadhiraja Kameshwar
Singh Kalyani Foundation, 2007), p. 325.
55
Prime Minister, Faridkot State, to the Secretary, Provincial Committee, BDMM,
Mathura, 3 March 1903, PCF, BDMMPIC.
56
Report of BDMM for 1916, Home, Political, B (HP-B), August 1917, No 190-91,
NAI, p. 9.
57
Ibid.
56
Ibid.
57
Ibid., pp. 28–31.
60
United Provinces Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Committee Report
(Allahabad: United Provinces Government Press, 1930), pp. 18–20 (RECR).
piety and managed from ‘time immemorial’ by religious traditions.60
It held colonial systems of administration and justice accountable
for decimating the power of the ‘ecclesiastical hierarchy’ managing
community-based charitable enterprises.58
Orthodox Hindu associations allied with Din Dayal Sharma
deprecated the transformation of the Mahamandala into an
organization dominated by sadhus. They berated Swami Gyanananda
for misusing offerings gifted to him by his bhaktas (devotees).59
His detractors bemoaned his mismanagement of the controversial
Mahamandala Trust and improper behaviour towards female disciples
in his private chambers.60 In turn, the Mahamandala praised Swami
Gyanananda for being a pavitra (pure) ascetic committed to crafting
an orthodox ‘Hindu nation’ through philanthropy.61 It accepted that
orthodox Hinduism was on the wane due to the undeniable decline
in the moral and spiritual behaviour of its erstwhile ascetic leaders.62
Mahamandala periodicals reiterated that once the bodies, morals, and
behaviour of sadhus were reformed, they would embrace the path of
directed sewa (service) and charity to revitalize an orthodox Hindu
‘public’ and ‘nation’.63
The Mahamandala sponsored the Updeshak Mahavidyalaya, or
College of Divinity in Banaras to train Brahmin sadhus to become
preachers of orthodox Hinduism.64 In 1917, the Raja of Darbhanga
urged the Mahamandala’s donors to fund the College so that sadhus
could be educated in the ‘proper’ rituals, theology and modern
ideas required to protect sanatana dharma.65 The College was funded
by Swami Gyanananda’s princely bhaktas. Prominent amongst them
was the Maharaja of Darbhanga and the Rani of Khairagarh in
57
Ibid.
58
Ibid.
59
Letter of Din Dayal Sharma to Swami Gyanananda, quoted in Harihar Swaroop
Sharma, Vyakharan Vachaspati Pandit Din Dayalu Sharma Ki Smarak Granth (New Delhi:
1988), pp. 185–7, 291–5.
60
Letter from Members of Managing Committee Present at the Conference to
Members of the BDMM, 20/1/1917, SF 1D, DDSP, NMML.
61
‘Sachha Sadhu’, Nigamagam Chandrika, (NC), 24:8, p. 192, August 1919.
62
‘Narpati Ke Sadhu Updesh’, NC, 7:4, pp. 101–2, 1920.
63
‘Sachha Sadhu’, pp. 191–2; Also see ‘Sadhu Jiwan’, NC, 26:7, pp. 186–192, July
1921.
64
Report of BDMM for 1916, HP-B, August 1917, No 190–91, NAI.
65
Report of BDMM for 1917, pp. 130–31, BDMMPIC.
Mirzapur district.66 Here, the curriculum for the sadhus included the
scriptures, natural sciences, general knowledge, comparative theology
and philosophy, amongst other subjects.67 By 1920, The Principal
of the Hindu College of Divinity averred that the institution had
prepared the ‘sadhu class’ for leadership.68 Between 1940 and 1942,
alumni of the College of Divinity made public speeches opposing the
main planks of the Hindu Mahasabha’s sangathan campaign like shuddhi
(conversion), temple-entry, strategic caste reform, and measures
attacking maths.69
The Mahamandala emphasized the importance of reforming sadhus
in accordance with the customs and maryada (conduct) of their
sampraday.70 It gave prime importance to internal regulatory bodies
and panchayats (councils) established by different monastic orders to
restrain their members and protect their wealth. These bodies could
be established to resolve individual disputes. In 1927, for example,
one Mahant Ram Kishen of Bara Asthan in Faizabad assembled a
panchayat of 100 Ramanandi bairagis to excommunicate Mahant Ram
Padharay of Bithia Raj temple for marrying a widow and purchasing
property for his nephews out of temple monies.71 The Mahamandala
also supported local monastic bodies exercising supervisory powers
over maths. For instance, the Sri Panch Dasnami in Banaras removed
‘unsuitable’ Dasnami mahants from maths and ruled on disputes
that were resolved outside colonial courts.72 Regional sectarian
associations also controlled maths belonging to their sampraday. The
Mahamandala endorsed all regional sectarian associations such as the
All India Vaishnava Sammelan, which consolidated the position of
Ramanandi maths and akharas.73
66
Notes Regarding the Improvement of the BDMM, Majaraja of Narsinghgarh, 5
February 1914, PCF, BDMMPIC; Assistant Manager of the Raja of Darbhanga to the
Secretary, BDMM, 23/24 May 1904, PCF, BDMMPIC.
67
Report of BDMM for 1916, HP-B, August 1917, No 190–91, NAI.
68
World’s Eternal Religion, p. iii.
69
‘Mahamandala News’, Suryodaya, The Trilingual Special Quarterly Edition, p.
158, March 1942.
70
‘Samachar Sangraha: Kashi, Note on Religious Bills (including Advice to the
Religious Endowments Committee)’, Kavindra Narain Singh, General Secretary,
BDMM, Bharatdharm, p. 28, October 1924.
71
Police Abstracts of Intelligence, United Provinces (PAI), 30/7/1917.
72
Petition of Hanuman Puri in Mussumat Ghasiti Bibi vs. Gosain Rampuri, F. A.
79/1929, AHCCCDRR.
73
‘Bhahishkaar’ Vaishnava Panch (Sampadak Aur Prakashak, Sri Bhagwandas Khaki,
Shri Mahant, Ramanandiya Khaki Akhara, Sri Ayodhya, Vikram 1990) 1:1, pp. 7–8.
Sadhus and sampraday were at the heart of the Mahamandala’s
orthodox Hindu political community. During the math reform
campaign, the Mahamandala emerged as the champion of monastic
autonomy, amidst growing criticism that maths were uninterested in
dharmic gifting and sangathan. Throughout, the Mahamandala endorsed
the rights of monastic bodies to use their assets as they saw fit,
determine the beneficiaries of their charities, and discipline their
members. The next section shows that it opposed the Mahasabha
and Hindu sangathan through these discussions.
Dana, math reform, and Hindu sangathan before and after 1947
The Mahamandala and monastic orders debated vigorously with the

Mahasabha on the relationship between dana and sangathan. By the
1920s, the Mahasabha (1915), an umbrella organization initially
formed to represent ‘Hindu interests’, encouraged philanthropy
purged of sectarian and caste divisions. As mentioned earlier, the
Mahasabha’s ‘Hindu public’ sought to expand its constituency through
a variety of instrumental measures to forge a carefully crafted
and unified ‘Hindu community’ comprising achuts, ‘converts’, all
religious traditions, and ‘sects’ like the Sanatanists to protect its
interests from its imagined ‘enemies’, led by Muslims. Pertinently,
the Mahasabha carefully utilized the idea of sangathan in preference
to Hindutva until the 1940s. The Mahasabha was aware that
gurus found problematic Savarkar’s influential ideology decentralizing
the troubling heterogeneity of religiosity and sampraday in favour
of the presumed racial, political, territorial, and cultural basis of
‘Hinduness’. Further, while the Mahasabha was supportive of the
RSS’s goal of a Hindu rashtra based on Hindutva, it deliberately focused
on the more neutral ‘Hindu public’ to avoid alienating monastic orders
and Sanatanis. In the United Provinces, the Awadh and Agra Hindu
Sabhas, together with their local chapters, sought to forge alliances
between the embittered Arya Samaj, orthodox Hindus, and monastic
orders. The Hindu Sabhas enunciated these ideas in an environment
in which a variety of regenerative projects sought to consolidate
different communities of interest distinguished by caste and sampraday.
The Hindu Sabhas questioned philanthropic ventures they deemed
an obstacle to the formation of their ideal ‘Hindu public’, whether
sectarian associations directing dana to sanyasis, maths, and networks
of devotees, or institutionalized philanthropy by orthodox Hindus
excluding lower castes. The Mahasabha’s support of math reform also

coincided with its endorsement of the shallow ‘democratization’ of
sacred space through temple-entry to enable achuts and shudras to
benefit from caste- and sect-specific religious endowments.
When Din Dayal Sharma and Malaviya were at the helm of the
Mahasabha it sought to build alliances with ascetic orders. The
All India Sadhu Mahamandal (1918), affiliated to the Mahasabha,
was formed under Malaviya’s guidance. Its general secretary, one
Jagdishwaranand Bharti, reminded mahants of the important role
sadhus needed to play in shaping the Mahasabha’s policies. He
also pleaded with sanyasis to vigorously work for the cause of
Bharatvarsha to dispel society’s negative attitudes towards them.74
Prominent gurus and gosains attended the Mahasabha’s annual sessions,
became its members, and were connected to its local chapters
in the United Provinces. In 1915, the Mahasabha nominated the
Mahamandala’s Swami Gyanananda and Dayananda Swami to its
gauraksha (cow protection) committees.75 In 1919, Dayananda Swami
was a prominent member of the United Provinces Hindu Sabha
Propaganda Committee.76 He was also on the Committee for the
Protection of Milch Cattle and participated in controversial gauraksha
initiatives and campaigns. 77 Dayanand Swami supported some aspects
of sangathan, like shuddhi, but was not in favour of allowing ‘converts’
to dine and intermarry with orthodox Hindus.
Despite such prominent examples, the Sadhu Mahamandal
attracted few ascetics, given its insistence that they rise above
sampraday and caste to achieve sangathan. In 1924 Malaviya established
another body called the Bharat Varsh Sadhu Mahamandali in another
effort to attract sadhus. At this association’s Kumbh mela session in
1924, mahants expressed their dissatisfaction with its close connections
with the Mahasabha.78 By then, Brahmin gosains had moved away
from those planks of the Mahasabha’s sangathan campaign seeking
to instrumentally reform caste. At the Mahasabha’s 1923 gathering,
74
Shri Sadhu Mahasabha Ki Niyamvalli, 1918, File 10, Printed Material, Harihar
Swaroop Sharma Papers (HHSP), NMML.
75
Notice, Sukhbir Sinha, General Secretary, All India Hindu Mahasabha to
Announce a Meeting in Dehra Dun on 16 May 1919, SF 5, DDSP, NMML.
76
Ibid.
77
Summary of Resolutions Passed at the Seventh Session of the Hindu Mahasabha
held at Banaras on 19, 20, 21 and 22 August 1923 under the Presidentship of Madan
Mohan Malaviya, SF 51, HHSSP, NMML.
78
PAI/2/2/1924.
Malaviya had unsuccessfully urged orthodox Hindus and Brahmin
gurus to allow achuts to attend their meetings, schools, and colleges,
draw water from wells, and ‘convert’ to a higher caste status.
Malaviya’s assurances to orthodox Hindus that they were not required
to intermarry or dine with Hindu ‘converts’ fell on deaf ears.79 Amidst
worries of anti-Brahmin sentiment, the Mahamandala allied with
orthodox Hindus troubled by sangathan. Consequently, the provincial
Hindu Sabhas in the United Provinces found it an uphill task to attract
orthodox Hindus as allies.
Various allied associations worked with the Mahasabha during the
math reform campaign. All initiatives drew upon parallel programmes
of the Gurudwara Prabhandhak Committee to purge and cleanse
religious institutions amongst Sikhs.80 By 1920, in the United
Provinces the local Hindu Sabha worked with the Dharma Rakshana
Sabha of Lucknow whose senior leadership comprised prominent
members of the Awadh Hindu Sabha. The Dharma Rakshana Sabha
targeted maths and temples whose treasuries had been mismanaged
by their mahants and gurus and participated in legal and populist
schemes to manage such shrines.81 Similarly, the Dharmarth Rakshini
Sabha (1926) of Banaras dominated by members of the local Hindu
Sabha wished to ‘supervise and manage’ the charitable endowments
of the city.82 Orthodox Hindu associations affiliated with Malaviya
also controversially recommended the appointment of a management
committee to regulate religious institutions.83 This was a polarizing
issue for Malaviya’s supporters, many of whom had an innate belief in
the sanctity of charismatic leaders.
The Mahasabha and its allies supported populist campaigns
targeting rapacious Dasnami mahants like Satish Chandra Giri of
the Tarakeshwar math and temple near Calcutta. In 1924, a local
Mahabir Dal supported by Satish Chandra Giri’s tenants started a
satyagraha (movement based on passive resistance) demanding his
resignation. Subsequently they wished to convert the Tarakeshwar
79
‘Hindu Mahasabha, Banaras’, Leader, 20 August 1923 in F/214/1921, Box 138,
GAD, UPSA.
80
H. Oberoi, The Construction of Religious Boundaries, Culture, Identity and Diversity in
the Sikh Tradition (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994), pp. 305–76.
81
See the Bharatji satyagraha below.
82
Ramchandra Naik to Chief Magistrate, Banaras, undated, July 1926, Banaras
Collectorate Records, List 7, Department 10, File 80/1926, UPRAB.
83
Lakshminarayan Sudhar, Advocate, to Din Dayal Sharma, 10 April 1934, SF 1C,
DDSP, NMML.
math into a trust controlled by the ‘Hindu public’. Soon, the Bengal
Provincial Congress Committee joined hands with the Mahabir
Dal. It terminated the satyagraha after reaching a settlement with
Satish Chandra Giri and his cronies.84 In 1925, the Tarakeshwar
satyagraha inspired the Bharatji satyagraha against Mahant Paras
Ram in Rishikesh in the United Provinces. The mahants of this
Ramanandi gaddi were chosen from the Brahmin Ramanuji acharyas or
the open-caste Ramanandi bairagis.85 In the late nineteenth century
Mahant Lachman Das, a Brahmin Ramanuji acharya willed the gaddi
to his grihastha son Ram Ratan Das.86 Ram Ratan Das left the temple
to his minor son Paras Ram, who became mahant in 1906.87 Paras Ram
was a powerful landholder, local notable, and founding member of the
local Hindu Sabha. When he announced he was grooming his son as
his successor, he was opposed by the non-Brahmin Ramanandi bairagi
faction within the temple. Subsequently, the All India Vaishnava
Sammelan of Ayodhya, comprising Ramanandi bairagis, started a
satyagraha (1925–1930) to remove Paras Ram as mahant against the
background of their escalating sectarian schism with the Ramanujis.
Throughout, the bairagis pilloried Paras Ram for being a Brahmin, a
‘bastard’, and immoral, and for misusing temple funds.88
The Mahasabha’s support to these populist campaigns was
tempered by its anxiety about alienating notables, orthodox Hindus,
and monastic orders. In August 1924, members of the United
Provinces Congress Committee attended the Mahasabha’s working
committee meeting in Banaras. It resolved not to alienate orthodox
Hindus by sympathizing with the Tarakeshwar satyagraha. The Hindu
Sabha in the United Provinces was guided by Malaviya who criticized
the Bengal Congress for participating in the satyagraha without the
permission of the All India Congress Committee.89 From 1925, the
84
Kasturi, ‘All Gifting is Sacred’, pp. 126–7.
85
Claim for Muafi and Mahantship of Bharatji Temple, Political Department (PD),
F/185/1915, Box 360, UPSA.
86
Note on Bharatji Temple Rishikesh, PD in ibid.
87
Mahant Paras Ram, to Superintendent of the Dun, F/8/3/1921, Box 26, Dehra
Dun Commissioners Post Mutiny Records (DDCPMR), 1927–28, File 2, Uttarakhand
State Regional Archives, Dehra Dun (USADD).
88
Swami Balkrishnadas, Secretary, All India Vaishnava Sammelan, and Vaishnava
Dharma Mahamandal Satyug Kuti, Ayodhya (followed by 270 signatures of Bairagis
and Mahants from Ballia, Ayodhya, and other districts) to Commissioner, Dehra Dun,
19 February 1930, DDCPMR, Department 15, File 90, USADD. For details of the
Bharatji satyagraha see Kasturi, ‘This Land is Mine’, pp. 230–57.
89
PAI/30/8/1924.
Hindu Sabha’s support wavered during the Bharatji satyagraha. Before
the agitation, the local Hindu Sabha and the Dharma Rakshana Sabha
had established a committee of enquiry to investigate matters in
the temple. They supported the agitation on the grounds that the
Bharatji temple belonged to the entire ‘Hindu janta’ and not to just
one sampraday.90 By 1927, given the sectarian differences shaping the
agitation, the local Hindu Sabha distanced itself from this satyagraha.
The agitation was ultimately unsuccessful as it was unpopular amongst
Paras Ram’s tenants and local elites troubled by what it portended for
religion, property, and social unrest.
Orthodox Hindu associations in the United Provinces led by the
Mahamandala opposed populist campaigns against mahants. When
discussing the Tarakeshwar satyagraha, they expressed discomfort
with the Congress’ domination of the agitation.91 The Mahamandala
reiterated the importance of pre-existing checks and balances within
monastic orders to check the excesses of sanyasis, not ‘external’
methods designed to destroy religious traditions.92 Specifically, it
expressed its outrage at the treatment meted out to Satish Chandra
Giri, a member and patron. In the case of the Bharatji affair,
the Mahamandala reiterated that ‘married’ mahants like Paras Ram
could not succeed to the gaddi of the Bharatji temple.93 It endorsed
the opinion of the Mandir Committee convened by the All India
Vaishnava Sammelan at the Haridwar Kumh mela that Paras Ram
be replaced by another mahant appointed by a Ramanandi bairagi
council.94 Apart from the Mahamandala, ‘moderate’ orthodox Hindu
bodies like the Sanatana Dharma Mahasammelana also refused to
endorse campaigns cleansing religious institutions by force.95 Fearful
mahants concerned by threats to class and caste hierarchies within
monastic orders stayed aloof from both satyagrahas. They were afraid
that popular agitations headed by rank and file bairagis and tenants
90
Raja Rampal Singh, Sri Bharat Mandir Rishikesh Ke Sambandh Mein Hindu Bhaiyo Ke
Brati Avashyak Nivedan (Lucknow: Dharm Rakshana Sabha, 1923), Jhabarmal Sharma
Papers, Printed Material, NMML.
91
‘Sampadikiya Vichar, Tarakeshwar Satyagraha’, Brahman Sarvasra, p. 204, May
1924.
92
‘Vividh Vichar, Dharmic Sthaan’ NC, 29, p. 356, July 1924: ‘Mandir Mein Sudhar,
Bharatdharm, p. 1, September 1924.
93
‘Shri Mahamandala Samvad’, NC, pp. 187–8, December 1920.
94
PAI/30/4/1927.
95
Leader, 11 April 1927.
would foster a social revolution within maths and against landholders

more generally.
Given the combustible nature of such agitations, the Mahasabha and
its moderate orthodox Hindu allies changed their strategy to reform
maths through colonial laws on religious endowments.96 In 1928, the
government of the United Provinces appointed the Hindu Religious
and Charitable Endowments Committee to draft a new bill for the
legal supervision of maths and temples and their conversion into public
endowments. Members of the Committee included representatives of
the Arya Samaj, the Mahasabha, the Congress, and some orthodox
Hindu associations.97 Prominent amongst them was Raja Rampal
Singh, one of the founding members of the Dharma Rakshana Sabha
and the Awadh Hindu Sabha, and Ramakant Malaviya, a member of
the Congress and the Mahasabha.98 This group viewed the legal status
given to monastic institutions by the Endowments Acts responsible for
the licence given to maths and akharas to use their discretion about
charitable activities.99 The Endowments Committee also included
mahants, gurus, and members of the Mahamandala.100 It examined the
maths, temples, and pilgrimage sites in the United Provinces between
1927 and 1930 and published its findings in 1931.101 Of the 556
witnesses examined by the Committee, 237 were mahants, priests, and
others connected with religious institutions.102
Throughout, mahants, gurus, and their associations opposed measures
to convert maths into public trusts accountable to the ‘Hindu public’.
They warned that such bills would threaten sectarian autonomy
and the rights of monastic bodies to regulate maths and akharas.
Ascetic orders were divided about the degree of control mahants could
wield over math wealth. Mahants such as Harihar Gir of the rich
Dasnami Buddha Gaya math in Bihar, which controlled many Dasnami
institutions in north India, reiterated that all wealth accumulated
by sanyasis were subject ‘to their own desires’. Such gifts included
96
Opinion of Tej Bahadur Sapru on Hindu Religious and Charitable Bill of Hari
Singh Gour, 16 June 1924, Tej Bahadur Sapru Papers, SF 8, NMML.
97
RECR, p. 1.
98
Ibid.
99
Ibid., p. 50.
100
‘Samachar Sangraha: Kashi’, l, Varnasram, Banaras 17/3/28, Public Health
Department, F/335/1928, Box 24, UPSA.
101
RECR, p. 6. For an assessment of the Endowments Committee, also see
‘Statement of Objects and Reasons’, The Dharmadaya Bill, J P Srivastava, United
Provinces Legislative Assembly Debates, 19 April 1938, pp. 325–7.
102
RECR, p. 6.
unconditional offerings made to gurus by devotees in recognition
of their sanctity and wealth accumulated through business. He
emphasized that sanyasis spent money on charity according to their
conscience and were not accountable in law as trustees.103 Despite
differences on this score, there was a consensus that converting maths
into public trusts would endanger the rights of monastic orders to this
wealth. From 1920, fearful akharas warned that an Endowments Bill
transforming maths and akharas into public trusts and granting legal
powers to ‘the public’ to audit and regulate these bodies would lead
to the oppression of mahants and multiply the dangers of litigation.104
Between 1925 and 1930 associations representing mahants, maths, and
akharas recommended the creation of an all-India body comprising
religious specialists to resolve problems within their institutions and
protect them from external threats.105 By this time, monastic orders
were already prejudiced by the Mahasabha’s eagerness to support
Buddhist organizations in their sustained campaign to ‘reclaim’ the
Mahabodhi Temple owned by the Dasnami Buddha Gaya math on the
grounds that it was a Buddhist pilgrimage site.106
Unsurprisingly, the Religious Endowments Committee’s final
report, submitted in 1932, reflected two starkly diverging opinions.
The ‘majority’ opinion, shaped by mahants, their orthodox Hindu
devotees, and the Mahamandala, stressed the importance of excluding
akharas and maths from endowments legislation and of recognizing
the rights of ‘autonomous’ religious traditions to regulate their own
institutions.107 It recommended that a number of ‘denominational
committees’ representing Hinduism’s main sampradays, comprising
mahants, sadhus, and grihastha devotees at the local and central levels,
supervise their religious charities and maths.108 The Mahamandala
103
Notes for Drawing up Objections to the Bihar Religious Endowments Bill (1938)
in the Form of a Memorial of Mahant Harihar Giri, Mahant of Buddha Gaya, to His
Excellency the Governor of the Province of Bihar, undated, SF 12, M. S. Aney Papers,
NMML.
104
Petition to Viceroy of India, (Lord Chelmsford) from Krishna Gopal Das, Udasi
Samaj, Bara Panchaiti, 25 February 1920, HD, Judicial-B, April 1920, No 319, NAI.
105
PAI/2/2/1925; PAI/ 25/8/1928.
106
See A. Trevithick, The Revival of Buddhist Pilgrimage at Bodh Gaya (1811–1949);
Anagarika Dharmapala and the Mahabodhi Temple (New Delhi: Motilal Bararsidass
Publishers, 2006). For a sustained discussion of how monastic orders and orthodox
Hindus engaged with the Buddha Gaya ‘affair’ see M. Kasturi, ‘Producing Hindu
Publics, Sadhus, Sampraday and Hindu Nationalism in Twentieth Century India’,
chapter on Sampraday and Sangathan (unpublished book manuscript).
107
RECR, p. 123.
108
Ibid., pp. 91, 102, 208.
argued that converting maths into ‘public trusts’ would imperil

the independence of sampradays following ‘different religions’ and
divergent theological perspectives.109 In contrast, the Mahasabha
and Congress members on the Committee insisted that sectarian
boards could not regulate maths. Ramakanth Malaviya and Raja
Rampal Singh insisted that such denominational boards would breed
disharmony and disunity amongst Hindus and weaken the conception
of Hindus ‘as a class, a people, a nation’.110 Given the impasse, the
Religious Endowments Committee was unable to convert monastic
establishments into public trusts by legal enactment.
Importantly, in the aftermath of unsuccessful legal reform to convert
maths into public trusts, disaffected orthodox Hindus and monastic
orders rejected sangathan and its problematic ‘Hindu public’ void of
sampraday. By 1930, the Mahamandala agitated to protect orthodox
Hinduism and varnasramadharma from the Mahasabha.111 It joined
forces with like-minded orthodox Hindu associations to assert that
the requirements of the times made the term ‘Sanatana dharmi’
(‘original Hindu’) more appropriate than the term ‘Hindu’ utilized
by the Mahasabha.112 Prominent gurus like the Shankaracharya of
Karva Peeth supported the Mahamandala in its stand against the
Mahasabha and its political vision. They advocated that ‘heterodox
pro-changers’ like the Mahasabha and their Sanatani supporters be
denied rights in temples, ancestral property, religious charities, and
other Sanatanist institutions as a form of punishment for sponsoring
‘anti-religious bills’ attacking maths and akharas.113 Before 1947, the
Mahamandala and its supporters agitated unsuccessfully to protect
the ‘unique’ rights of orthodox Hindus through legislation and later
in the Constituent Assembly, which rejected their claim that Sanatanis
were a religious minority requiring protection from ‘other’ Hindus in
an independent India.114
109
Ibid., p. 123.
110
Ibid., pp. 110A–114A.
111
Swami Dayananda, BDMM, to Harihar Swaroop Sharma, 17 December 1929,
SF 5A, HHSSP, NMML.
112
Circular of the Raksha Department, BDMM, 28 November 1932, No 438, M.
R. Jayakar Papers, NAI.
113
Authoritative Opinion of Shri Shancharacharya of Karva Peeth, to Viceroy of
India (Chelsmford) on the Anti Religious Bills Now Pending before the Legislative
Assembly, 1934, LP/J/7/1937, Asian and African Collections, British Library.
114
See for example the Representation to the Cabinet Mission on Behalf of the
Sanatanists or Orthodox Hindus sent by J. B. Durkhal, President, Indian Constitution
Committee, Dharm Sangh, and President Gujarat Provincial Sanatani Dal, to
By the 1950s, the Mahamandala’s fortunes waned. Subsequently,
new associations like Swami Karpatri’s Dharm Sangh (1944) and its
political wing, the Ram Rajya Parishad, became dominant players in
the politically fractured field of Hindu nationalism. Swami Karpatri
was an influential Dandi sanyasi, one of the three subdivisions of the
Dasnamis dominated by Brahmins, who had been closely associated
with the Mahamandala from its inception. His associations allied with
the declining Mahasabha and the RSS during the troubled 1940s,
when both parties moved Hindu rashtra and Hindutva centre-stage.
The Dharm Sangh thereafter participated with both organizations in a
spate of agitations seeking to protest the ‘anti-Hindu’ Nehruvian state.
Swami Karpatri skilfully navigated the tense relationship between the
Mahasabha and RSS, shaped in no small part by the latter’s reluctance
to participate in politics. Instead, the RSS chose to popularize its
ideology through grassroots organizations, whether its shakhas (cells)
or its ‘family’ of affiliated associations, now known as the ‘Sangh
Parivar’. By 1955, the Dharm Sangh and Ram Rajya Parishad parted
ways with the Mahasabha. Swami Karpatri and his associations also
moved away from the Jan Sangh, the new political party affiliated with
the RSS. By this period, the RSS and its affiliated organizations grew
in power, influence and scale compared to other Hindu nationalist
organizations. Importantly, there were significant disagreements
between the Dharm Sangh, the RSS, and the Mahasabha on the role of
orthodox Hinduism in shaping Bharatiya sanskriti (Indian culture) and a
Hindu political consciousness driven by Hindutva and Hindu rashtra.115
The failure of Hindu sangathan, and continuing debates between
the various political organizations identifying themselves with Hindu
nationalism, meant that the aims, goals, and beneficiaries of philan-
thropic projects of gurus continued to be diverse. For example, in 1950,
Swami Karpatri founded the Dharma Sangh Shikhshamandal (1944),
which defined itself as an important ‘public institution’ elucidating his
orthodox Hindu vision of Ramrajya (utopian state). The Shikshamandal
established schools and colleges in Banaras, Delhi, and Rajasthan to
carry out its ‘pious’ national duty to propagate ‘Indian culture’ and
President and Members of the Cabinet Mission, 8 April 1946, All India Hindu
Mahasabha Papers, Miscellaneous SF M-16, NMML.
115
Kasturi, ‘Producing Hindu Publics’, chapter on Swami Karpatri and the Dharm
Sangh.
119
Petition of Shri Dharm Sangh Shikshamandal, to Local Government, 15 May
1950, in Mahal Bhadauni Case 39 of 1955, Banaras Collectorate Civil Cases Record
Room.
to train Brahmin lecturers to preach sanatana dharma and the ‘Hindu’

way of life.116 The trust functioned as an arm of the Swami Karpatri
Dham, the math in Banaras established by Swami Karpatri until its
decline due to a lack of funds and internecine feuds between trustees.
In more recent times, gurus in Uttar Pradesh remain embedded
in a north Indian socio-religious and political landscape of sampraday
sustained by immense networks of devotees, despite the efforts
of the Vishva Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council), a religious
organization formed by the RSS in 1964, to pull all charismatic
leaders together on one platform.117 Notably, gurus and their maths,
akharas, and ashrams have made philanthropy one of their core
goals. The participation of monastic establishments in philanthropic
ventures waxes and wanes depending on their aspirations, ambitions,
and local political alliances. Charity within smaller maths continues
to be restricted to beneficiaries defined by sampraday and caste.
The Dasnami Dakshinamurti math in Banaras, belonging to the
Mahanirvani akhara, funds the Vishwanath Sanskrit Pathshala open
to ‘twice-born’ castes.118 Modest maths, such as the Machlibandar math
in Banaras belonging to Dandi Dasnami sanyasis, have no affiliated
institutions except for primary schools within their premises for upper-
caste boys, most of whom are Brahmin.119 Maths often donate funds to
organizations taking care of sadhus from their religious tradition. These
associations include the Akhil Bharatavarshiya Avadhut Bhesh Barah
Panth Yogi Mahasabha that assists ‘all Nathyogis and monasteries,
and maintenance and progress of the Nath sampraday’.120 Likewise, the
Akhil Bharatiya Dasnami Sadhu Chattra Parishad (1947) seeks to
unite Dasnamis by awarding scholarships to sadhus irrespective of sub-
116
Memorandum of Association of Shri Bharat Dharm Sangh Shikshamandal,
enclosed in the Petition of Ramnarain Tripathi, Chottelal Kanoria et al, Members of
Dharm Sangh, undated, in ibid.
117
D. Gold, ‘Continuities as Gurus Change’, in The Guru in South Asia, pp. 240–52;
J. Nair, ‘A Matha Court in Karnataka and the Demand for Legality’, New Delhi:
NMML Occasional Paper, History and Society, New Series, 75, 2014. On the Vishva
Hindu Parishad see M. Katju, The Vishva Hindu Parishad and Indian Politics (New Delhi:
Orient Blackswan Press, 2003).
118
Brijlal Tripathy, Principal, Sanskrit Mahavidyalaya, Dakshinamurti math,
Banaras, interviewed on 28 February 2015.
119
Swami Ranchor Ashram, Mahant, Machlibandar math, Banaras, Kotwal Kashi
interviewed on 28 February 2015.
120
Yogi Chetainath. Mahamantri, Akhil Bharatavarshiya Avadhuta Bhesh Barah
Panth Yogi Mahasabha, Haridwar, interviewed on 6 January 2015. Also see
www.guruvilasnathji.com/about-us/ (accessed on 13 February 2018).
sect and caste. The Akhil Bharatiya Akhara Parishad (1955) protects
the interests of both Vaishnava and Shaiva akharas.121
Few maths in Uttar Pradesh have consistently yoked philanthropy
to Hindutva. A notable exception is the Shaiva Gorakhnath math
in Gorakhpur belonging to the Nath sampraday. The charitable
portfolio of the Gorakhnath math has expanded in conjunction with
its emergence as the largest landlord and power-player in Gorakhpur.
This coincided with the tenure of Baba Digvijaynath (1932–1966)
who had played a prominent role in the leadership of the Mahasabha.
Thereafter, the math has been closely involved with the RSS and
Sangh Parivar. Simultaneously, its mahants maintained its position
within the Nath sampraday. Baba Digvijaynath was one of the main
organizers of the Akhil Bharatiya Yogi Mahasabha in Haridwar,
which regulated the properties and interests of the sampraday. He
and his successors ensured that the mahants of the Gorakhnath math
remained its hereditary sabhapatis (presidents). This exceptionally
powerful Nathyogi math has been funded by wealth amassed by its
mahants and its devotees and political patrons. Its charities encompass
a whole range of services for sadhus and pilgrims. Further, the
Maharana Pratab Shikshamandal, established by Baba Digvijaynath,
supports educational institutions and hospitals in Gorakhpur city
and district.122 Thus, maths linked to Hindu nationalist bodies also
continuously juggle multiple constituencies and beneficiaries of
charity in their localities of interest.
Conclusion
This article has highlighted colonial law’s tendency to treat maths

and akharas as discrete and autonomous religious corporations. This
121
For information on these institutions I am indebted to Narendra Giri, Mahant,
Baghambari math, Allahabad, interviewed on 23 March 2015 and Viswanathanand
Puri, Librarian, Dakshinamurti math, Banaras, interviewed on 28 February 2015.
122
Interview with Pratab Rao, Principal, Maharana Pratab Mahavidyalaya, Jungle
Ghusad, Gorakhpur, 2 April 2015. For the math’s charitable institutions see
http://www.gorakhnathmandir.in/chitksha.html, [accessed on 28 December 2016].
On the Gorakhnath math, see S. Chaturvedi, ‘Religion, Culture and Power: A Study of
Everyday Politics in Gorakhpur’, (unpublished PhD dissertation, Centre For Political
Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University 2016); M. Kasturi, ‘Negotiating the Sacred in
Twentieth Century Gorakhpur, the Nath Yogis, the Gorakhnath Math and Contested
Urban Space’, in Urban Spaces in India, ed. P. Datta and N. Gupta (New Delhi: Secretary
of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, in press), pp. 189–206; Kasturi,
‘Producing Hindu Publics’, chapter on Baba Digvijaynath and the Gorakhnath math.
ironically strengthened the ability of monastic orders to utilize dana

with few restraints. Indeed, court judgments indicate that mahants
strategically used colonial law to assume personal control of math
assets, and even tried to elude internal regulation by monastic
councils and bodies. Thus, colonial law and the courts enabled the
transformation of mahants and their maths and akharas into powerful
socio-religious and economic stakeholders, who were not scrutinized
for their contributions towards charity. During the math reform
campaign, mahants and their allies dominated the United Provinces
Religious Endowments Committee and were successful in keeping
at bay efforts to change the unique legal position of maths and
akharas. After 1947, monastic institutions have continued to engage
strategically with legal discourses.
Under British rule dana given to gurus and maths remained multi-
layered in intent and meaning in ways that transcended colonial
binaries of ‘secular’ and ‘sacred’ gifting. Despite the dislocations
caused by colonialism, the sharp rise in devotionalism led to an
explosion of ‘sacred’ gifting to Vaishnava, Shakta and Shaiva gurus
by devotees and donors. Such gifts were amalgamated into complex
financial portfolios of individual gurus, maths, and akharas. Within
monastic institutions, whether such monies belonged to individual
members or to the math or akhara in question continued to be a
contentious issue. By the twentieth century, the relationship of math
wealth to philanthropy was discussed in an environment in which
gurus from different sampraday rebuilt their relationships with their
devotional base through new associations, print culture, and diverse
philanthropic projects. Within maths members were divided on the
question of dana and its relationship with philanthropy.
While monastic orders were possessive of their wealth, they awoke
to the advantages of participating in new philanthropic projects to
rejuvenate their sampraday and strengthen their position and power
in shifting political contexts. In the nineteenth century monastic
institutions supported private charities for their sanyasis, devotees,
and patrons. By 1940, mahants and gurus engaged with public
sphere debates connecting gifting by donors to the revitalization
of communities of interest. Larger maths and akharas established
educational and philanthropic trusts nurturing broader audiences.
Since independence, despite the subsequent expansion of the Sangh
Parivar’s influence, the charitable portfolios of monastic orders have
remained diverse, ranging from charities focusing on their sampraday to
ambitious ventures encompassing hospitals, educational institutions,
and welfare schemes. Through philanthropy, charismatic leaders
attached to most maths, akharas, and sectarian associations in north
India continue to be primarily interested in enhancing their spiritual
and symbolic capital and the power of their institutions in various
networks.
The math reform campaign revolving around the trope of the
‘fallen sanyasi’ took place amidst concerns to regenerate socio-religious
publics through philanthropy. Despite the Mahasabha’s best efforts,
orthodox Hindus and monastic orders opposed its conception of the
‘Hindu public’ that would benefit from philanthropy, and articulated
alternative visions of a socio-religious ‘public’ and political community.
Orthodox Hindus established networks of charitable institutions
for ‘true’ varnasrami Hindus to nurture the Sanatani community
and its ‘way of life’. Maths and sectarian associations linked dana
to the renewal of guru-parampara orders and sampraday. Even the
Mahamandala’s efforts to connect philanthropy to an orthodox Hindu
nation ordered by caste and monasticism was tilted in favour of
sampraday. The circles of beneficiaries of charitable gifting within
these socio-religious publics of gifting were circumscribed and limited
by internal hierarchies of caste and class. Thus, my discussion of
philanthropy and sangathan shows that the early twentieth century
witnessed the emergence of a discordant Hindu political and cultural
consciousness, whose engagements with gurus and religious traditions
continue to inform the meanings attached to Hindutva and Bharatiya
sanskriti in significant, if unexpected ways.

Reform Campaign, and Competing Visions of Hindu Sangathan in Twentieth-Century India

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Modern Asian Studies 52, 1 (2018) pp. 99–131.

Gurus and Gifting: Dana, the math

Department of History, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

relationship between monasticism and an emerging Hindu nationalist cultural

This article analyses early twentieth-century debates on philanthropy

which together formed a ‘gift economy’ that was organically linked

together. Its conception of a ‘Hindu public’ included achuts

Hindu socio-religious and political bodies.14 By the late nineteenth

have engaged with philanthropy in more recent times. This article

Mahants, math wealth, and colonial law

Although the East India Company resumed revenue-free lands gifted

could partition or transfer properties belonging to the gaddi, as they

the desire to nurture monasticism and its devotional and patronage

Concerned by the decline of asceticism, the Mahamandala

The Bharat Dharma Mahamandala, philanthropy, and the

Swami Gyanananda began his journey as Jogeshwar Mukherjee, the

The Mahamandala and monastic orders debated vigorously with the

excluding lower castes. The Mahasabha’s support of math reform also

would foster a social revolution within maths and against landholders

argued that converting maths into ‘public trusts’ would imperil

to train Brahmin lecturers to preach sanatana dharma and the ‘Hindu’

This article has highlighted colonial law’s tendency to treat maths

ironically strengthened the ability of monastic orders to utilize dana

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