This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
Sant Shri Asaramji Bapu Ashram Trust was founded in 1973 at Motera, on the banks of the Sabarmati River near Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India, by Asaram Bapu, born Ashumal Sirumalani and also known as Asha Ram. The Trust teaches a devotional blend of Vedanta and yoga emphasizing celibacy, meditation and obedience to the guru, combined with explicit opposition to Western cultural influence.
At its reported peak before Asaram's 2013 arrest, the Trust operated around 400 ashrams and forty residential schools across eighteen countries, claiming tens of millions of followers, a geographic reach that placed the organization well beyond South Asia and among the larger Hindu guru organizations of its era. Alongside that network of ashrams and residential schools, the Trust ran medical, educational and charitable programs at that same reported peak, extending its activity beyond religious instruction into practical social services delivered under the same institutional umbrella across its many centers.
Asaram Bapu remains the organization's founder figure today, even as he serves a life sentence for rape.