Warrior Ascetics

Maybe "ascetic" brings to mind a guy who lives in the wilderness and doesn't eat a lot or like being around people much. If you're well versed in your religious traditions, you may have a more nuanced picture. After all, the Templars were effectively monks. But these surprised me.

That religious ascetics would be inducted into fighting regiments is neither necessarily perverse – in the context of the history of traditional Hinduism – nor necessarily a radical break from a previous mode of life. There is an obvious similarity in the lifestyles of both soldiers and ascetics: both require rigorous self-discipline, enduring the hardships of lengthy travel and extended periods of camping; subsistence, sometimes, on meager rations; being subservient to a commander or guru; and enduring extended (or permanent) celibacy. In medieval India, asceticism, trade, and war were not incompatible.

Fighting ascetics are usually referred to as nāgās (deriving from the Hindi term naṅgā, “naked”). Nāgās are usually almost naked, except for a loincloth (laṅgotī/kaupīn ̣ ),

There may be a reference to such armed ascetics in a 7'th century romance, and maybe references from the 9'th to 12'th centuries. In the 16'th century "scorn is poured on yogīs, siddhas (another name for yogīs), mahants (chiefs/superiors), and ascetics who resort to arms, keep women, and collect property and taxes." And the East India Company ran into them: "Peasants and marauding Sufi faqīrs and Daśanāmī gosāīṃs fought company troops in the Bengal region, with many casualties on all sides, in a series of military encounters"

I gather that this kind of naga, though transliterated into English the same as naga (serpent), isn't related or pronounced the same.