Shaven-headed and clad in yellow-orange robes–whether they are Buddhist monks in Thailand, Sadhus in the Indian countryside, or Hare Krishnas in American airports–that is the enduring image of Indian religion that many westerners carry in their minds. The cultural institution behind these modern manifestations, an institution which we have chosen to call the “renouncer tradition”, is very old. It goes back to about the middle of the first millennium bce and took shape along the mid-Gangetic plane in roughly what is today the state of Bihar.

The image of Indian religion as essentially world-renouncing and ascetic (Dumont 1960), however, is grossly inaccurate. Yet, behind that image lies a kernel of truth: the renouncer tradition has been a central and important ingredient in the socio-cultural mix that contributed to the formation of the historical religions in India. As any human institution, nevertheless, that kernel and the Indian religions themselves changed over time and space.

The earliest historical information about the renouncer tradition comes from the Upaniṣads and other Vedic writings, as well as from Buddhist literary sources. Given the uncertainly of their dates, however, it is impossible to give a precise or certain date to the origin of that tradition: hence, my vague reference to “the middle of the first millennium bce.” The earliest datable source that attests to the existence of the renouncer tradition is the Aśokan inscriptions of the middle of the third century bce.