[7] According to another account found in the late 19th-century Nirmal Panth Pardipika by the Nirmala scholar and Tat Khalsa supporter Giani Gian Singh, Guru Gobind Singh met a Sanskrit scholar named Pandit Raghunath in late 17th-century.

[8] So Guru Gobind Singh sent some Sikhs dressed in upper-caste attire to Varanasi, where they became accomplished scholars of Indian theology and philosophy.

[3][9] Pashaura Singh and Louis E. Fenech hypothesize that the Nirmalas originated much later or may have descended from the Udasis, who are similar to them in ascetic lifestyle, celibacy and Vedantic interpretation of Sikh philosophy.

[10] Patronage from Sikh nobles, especially the rulers of the Phulkian states, helped the Nirmalas become a prominent religious order.

[10] They view the first Sikh Guru, Nanak, as an Advaita Vedantist, a follower of Shankara, and a defender of the Sanatana dharma.

But after the Akali movement, the Khalsa attempts to create a Sikh identity completely distinct from Hindus made the Khalsa-Nirmala relationship fragile.

[13] They observe the same birth and death rituals as the Hindu ascetics and have an akhara (martial organization) in Haridwar,[13] and a number of deras in Punjab (India).

[10] Other major Nirmala centres are located at Haridwar, Allahabad, Ujjain, Trimbak, Kurukshetra and Patna.