• Naga Sadhus fought wars to protect Dharma. A good e.g. is their defeat of Ahmed Shah Abdali army at Gokul in Uttar Pradesh.

While we currently have the Maha Kumbh Mela ongoing, we’re seeing plenty of visuals of the Naga Sadhus. Almost always they are described by (the mostly deracinated) media as “ascetics who live in the Himalayas and come to Prayagraj for the Kumbh”. This description includes zero detailing of who the Naga Sadhus are and what their role in Bharat’s history has been.

Here I write about just one of what I am sure are thousands of examples in history of Naga Sadhus’ role in a key historical event of our civilisation and why they are also referred to as ‘Shiva’s Sacred Warriors’.

Here goes…When 4,000 Naga sadhus defeated & forced the retreat of a 40,000-strong army of Ahmad Shah Abdali

1757 is when Ahmed Shah Abdali invaded India for the fourth time. After looting Delhi in February 1757, he instructed his two Afghan commanders Najib Khan and Jahan Khan to take 20,000 Afghan soldiers with them and carry out similar raids and loot in Ballabgarh, Mathura, Agra, Vrindavan.

As mentioned in his official decree,

“The city of Mathura, Vrindavan is a holy place of the Hindus, let it be put entirely to the edge of the sword right upto Agra leave not a single place and raze every building to the ground, whatever booties you would get in the wars will be yours, behead the Hindu Kafirs and gift their head in Afghan camp to me and take Rs 5 as a reward for that.” Ahmad Shah Abdali 

As the Afghan army reached Mathura, they started destroying temples, killing Hindu men, raping women, taking them as sex slaves and enslaving children. Many women jumped in the Yamuna committing suicide so as to escape from the murderous Afghan maniacs. For three days the holy soil of Mathura was drenched with the blood of Hindus and the number of dead bodies were so much that Mathura’s air was producing foul smell for many months. 

The Afghan army captured bounties worth Rs 12 crore, enslaved 6,000 Hindu women for selling them in Kabul. After attacking Mathura, the Afghan marched towards Vrindavan and then Mahaban, and these cities too met the same fate as that of Mathura.

After destroying Vrindavan, while the Afghan army’s next target was to attack Agra one of the commanders, Sardar Khan decided to plunder and loot Gokul as well, which is just about 10 kms away from Mahaban. So he along with 10,000 Afghan soldiers marched towards Gokul.

Nearing the city, they had a completely unexpected sight. Approximately 4,000 Naga Sadhus were waiting for them outside the city limits, ash smeared and ready for war.

Word is that, when the Naga sadhus had heard about the plight caused by the Afghans of Hindus in Mathura, they had made their way into Gokul from Haridwar, Ujjain, etc and had set up in defence of Gokul. At first Afghans anticipated that the Nagas wouldn’t be able to counter them for long but soon they were proved wrong as the Afghan soldiers started to get overwhelmed by the Naga sadhus’ strength, speed and military skill. The sadhus were well trained in the use of swords, matchlocks and cannons.

Also apparently the ash-smeared faces were terrifying the Afghan soldiers so much that they were unable to give any resistance to the Nagas at all. With heavy casualties, the Afghan army started suffering, due to which their strength now started decreasing drastically on the battlefield. Word of this reached Abdali enraging him further and he threw 30,000 more troops into this battle. But all that did was to extend the battle and not change its result.

By the end of the battle, more than 5,000 Afghan soldiers had died and about 4 times as many were injured, whereas approximately 2,000 Nagas had attained martyrdom in this battle.

The Afghan commander Sardar khan was aware that Abdali would punish him for his decision of retreating from the war with humiliation since they had been victorious everywhere from Kabul to Mathura and a defeat at hands of the ‘ascetic’ Nagas was a big blow to them. 

So he bribed Jugal Kishor who had been appointed by Abdali from Bengal for inspecting the war and documenting the loot / treasure caught in war, to frame a false report that Afghans retreated due to the spread of an epidemic in the Afghan army and that Gokul was actually just a simple town full of sadhus and there was nothing to loot there, so that he could escape from the penalty of losing the battle of Gokul and returning defeated & humiliated.

Paragraph from the book ‘Ahmad Shah Durrani, Father Of Modern Afghanistan’, Asia Publishing House, 1959.

The point of this story is…The Naga Sadhus aren’t merely ‘ascetics who live in the Himalayas.’

Also, Bharat’s warriors have come from all walks of life. Spirituality and battle are both ingrained in our history. We are NOT a ‘turn the other cheek’ civilisation. We are not the one who throw the first punch, but by Shiva we will be the one to throw the last punch.

And lastly, don’t mess around with the Naga Sadhus!!!

First published Here eSamskriti.com has obtained permission from author to share.

To read all articles by author

Editor Notes

To add to the above here is an extract from The History and Culture of Indian People published by the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan Volume 8, pg 155. “Facing opposition from Jawahar Singh, Abdali’s General, entered Mathura and carried on plunger and massacre of the inhabitants. Gokul was saved by the stiff resistance of 4,000 warlike Naga Sannyasis, but, want of opposition at Vrindavan, it suffered terribly.”

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