Kurochkin A.Y. (2025). Indijskie vooruzhennye askety, borcy-malla i vrat’i: svjaz’ tradicij cherez argument kompleksa vooruzhenij [Indian armed ascetics, malla wrestlers, and vratyas: connecting traditions through the argument of arms complex]. Istoricheskoe oruzhievedenie [Weapons History Journal], № 15, pp. 208—290.
Abstract: The article demonstrates the limitations of the existing approach to determining when the phenomenon of armed Indian asceticism first appeared in history. Attempts to explain it solely through the establishment of militarized divisions within existing sampradayas are motivated by the convenience of researching the well-documented period of the 16th-18th centuries.
The article shows that armed Indian ascetics preferred extremely archaic types of weapons, even those not associated with religious symbolism: the design of their preferred daggers matches that of iron daggers from the 1st millennium AD. The author proves that the design of the double-edged dagger made from antelope horns and the traditions surrounding its use correspond to the design and traditions surrounding the use of brass knuckles by malla wrestlers, which are apparently mentioned in the Mahabharata. Both types of weapons are semantically linked to the vajra, lightning bolt, or Indra’s ‘fist’. There is also a clear connection between the traditions of ascetics and malla wrestlers, who share a dual divine and demoniac nature. The connections between these groups, as well as between the vratyas and kshatriyas, are shown.
The article identifies a set of objects with symbolic significance for hermits described in epics and armed ascetics mentioned in sources from the 1st to 7th centuries AD. It is shown that a very similar set of attributes with the same semantic meaning, as well as behavioural characteristics, were inherent in many itinerant socio-cultural groups: vratyas, ascetics, bhakti of cattle-breeding cults, and even itinerant groups of performers in the early 19th century.
The article explains that the need to protect themselves from wild animals was one of the earliest reasons for the high level of militarisation among the Indian population. The very first hermit or wanderer in the forests or on the roads of India was already forced to be armed.
An ascetic, who is prepared to achieve spiritual fulfilment through armed struggle and death in battle, appeals to a more ancient set of beliefs than ascetics who followed the concept of moksha.
Also, given the involvement of ascetics in the religious life of society, the antiquity of armed asceticism should correspond to the phenomenon of pilgrimage and related economic activity.
The article does not postulate a direct line between vratyas and armed ascetics. A living tradition is characterised not by the fact that it constantly exists in an unchanging, fixed form, but by the fact that it is capable of taking on new forms, while retaining its original content. It is precisely the repetitiveness of such content in the form of a stable set of attributes and behavioural characteristics that allows us to assert that the phenomenon of armed Indian asceticism is rooted in much deeper layers of traditions and beliefs than it might seem when studying ascetic associations of the 16th-18th centuries.
Keywords: ascetics, malla, vratyas, kshatriyas, epic, Mahabharata, dagger, vajra, Indian arms.