The Nath Sampradaya

8/21/2019 The Nath Sampradaya

1/20

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2011 BEH , vol. IIIAlso available online – www.brill.nl

features that characterize the Nāth Sampradāyatoday will be summarized (for a more detailedethnography of today’s Nāths, see Bouillier, 2008;see also → Kānphat ạ̄s), followed by an examina-tion of their historicity: Nāths today claim thattheir characteristics were introduced by Goraks ạwhen he founded the Sampradāya, but many areof more recent origin. Aspects of Nāth identitythat are shared with other groups, such as theNāth ascetics’ observance of typical Hindu

renouncers’ vows (see → sādhus), will not beexamined in detail.Today the ascetic branch of the Nāth Sampradāya

is quite distinct from that of the householders.Membership of the former is open to all andeffected by initiation from an ascetic Nāth guru.Householder Nāths greatly outnumber ascetics

e Nāth Sampradāya today comprises an orderof renunciate ascetics and a householder caste,both of which trace their lineages to a groupof nine Nāth gurus headed by Ādinātha (“FirstNāth”), who is identified with the god → Śiva. Nextin most lists of nine Nāths comes Matsyendranātha,followed by Goraks ạnātha (Gorakhnāth), who issaid to have founded the Nāth order of ascetics.e earliest references to the Nāth ascetic orderas an organized entity date to the beginning of

the 17th century, but its first historical gurus,Matsyendranātha and Goraks ạnātha, lived muchearlier, probably in the 9th and 12th centuries,respectively, and during the intermediate periodthere are numerous references to both ascetic andhouseholder Nāths in texts, inscriptions, iconog-raphy, and historical reports. In this article, the

Nāth Sampradāya

Fig. 1: Two ascetics, early 19th century. On the right is a Kānphat ạ̄ Nāth (© British Library – India Office Select Materials, Shelf-mark Add.27255, f.399b).

Nath Sampradaya_1 20.indd 1Nath Sampradaya_1-20. indd 1 8/3/2011 5:31:31 PM8/3/2011 5:31:31 PM


2/20

2

and consist of a broad variety of mainly endoga-mous castes. ey see themselves as descendantsof Nāth ascetics who broke their vows of celibacyand settled down as householders. Householder

Nāths are found throughout India and Nepal,with certain regions, such as Karnataka, Rajast-han, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand,and Nepal, having higher concentrations thanothers. e various householder Nāth castesinclude a wide range of social groups, from low-status Muslim bards in Uttar Pradesh and Biharto relatively high-status Sanskritized jogī s (Hind. yogī ) and Nāths in → Rajasthan and → Karnataka,respectively.

e ascetic Nāth order is overseen by an orga-nization called the Akhil Bharatvarshiya Ava-dhoot Bhesh Barah Panth Yogi Mahasabha (“eAll-Indian Great Assembly of the RenunciateYogis of the Twelve Lineages”), which wasfounded in 1906 and whose headquarters are inHaridwar. ere are approximately eight to tenthousand Nāth ascetics in India today (Bouillier,2008, 15). eir monasteries, which number aboutfive hundred, are found mostly in northern andwestern India. ere are also a handful of monas-teries in each of the following regions of the sub-continent: Bihar, Bengal, Assam, Orissa, AndhraPradesh, Karnataka, Nepal, and Pakistan.

Nāth ascetics may be sthāndhārī , sedentary,

but most are itinerant. A troop of Nāth asceticsthat is known as the jamāt and has a floating pop-ulation of about one hundred wanders continu-ously about India, reinforcing the collective Nāthascetic identity by attending important Nāthfestivals. ese festivals recur in annual and lon-ger cycles. Navarātra is spent at Jwalamukhi inHimachal Pradesh and kārttikpūrn ịmā (full moonin Oct–Nov) at Pushkar in Rajasthan. During themonth of māgh (Jan–Feb), a Nāth melā is held atPushkar, from which the jamāt travels to Girnarto celebrate śivarātrī . e jamāt attends all of the

triennial kumbhamelās. Aer the kumbhamelā held every 12 years at Nasik (the next being in2016), the jamāt spends six months walking to theNāth monastery at Kadri, near Mangalore inKarnataka, to install on śivarātrī a new rājā yogī(see below), who is elected at the Nasik melā andwalks with the jamāt .

e appearance and lifestyle of Nāth asceticsare very similar to those of other North Indianascetics, in particular the → Daśanāmī nāgā sam ṇyāsī s, → Rāmānandī tyāgī s, and Udāsīs (see→ sādhus). ey are celibate, they wear loincloths

and dhotī s (never undergarments or trousers),they cover their bodies in ash, and they oenwear their hair in jat ạ̄, dreadlocks, althoughseveral Nāths keep their hair short. ey live by a

dhūnī or sacred fire, and many smoke cannabis.ere are very few female ascetic Nāths.

e Nāth order is traditionally associated withthe practice of yoga and → Tantra, certain varietiesof which are said to have originated from theirfirst gurus, Matsyendra and Goraks ạ, but todayfew pursue either very assiduously. Despite theirfounder’s reputation as its first teacher, almost noNāths practice Hat ḥa Yoga (see → Yoga). e ini-tiatory, funereal, and other important rituals ofthe order are tantric, with the goddess Bālā/Tripurāsundarī (see → Kashmir) being the focusof worship, but for many ascetic Nāths, their dailyreligious observance consists of living a renunci-ate life and worshipping the order’s deities and gurus in a manner consistent with typical NorthIndian → bhakti. e central object of worship inseveral monasteries, and for the itinerant jamāt , isthe pātr , a pot containing items emblematic of theNāths: the sīn ̇ gnād janeū, earrings, a → rudrāks ạ mālā, and a chillum, the clay pipe used for smokingcannabis (Bouillier, 2008, 43).

e religious life of householder Nāths alsoconsists for the most part in devotional practices,in particular the communal singing of bhajans

(see → kīrtan and bhajan), as well as listening topublic performances of Nāth bards singing epicromances about legendary Nāth ascetics, kings,and heroes. In some regions, Nāth householdersfunction as hereditary temple priests (e.g. Nepal:Bouillier, 1986). Certain communities of Rajast-hani Nāth householders engage in secret sexualrites (Gold, 2002). Like their ascetic counterparts,Nāth householders are usually buried aer death.

All Nāths, whether ascetics or householders,wear around their necks the sīn ̇ gnād janeū, a longblack woollen thread on which a very small horn,

a rudrāks ạ seed, and a ring are strung. e horn(which is really more of a whistle) is blown duringcertain rituals and before eating. Most Nāth ascet-ics and a diminishing number of householderswear thick, hooped earrings in slits cut in the car-tilages (not the lobes) of their ears, because ofwhich they are also known as → Kānphat ạ̄ (“split-eared”) yogī s, a somewhat derogatory name that iseschewed by Nāths themselves. All Nāths hail oneanother with the greeting “ādeś ” (see below). eyare Śaiva, oen worshipping Śiva as → Bhairava, aform associated with tantric practice.



3/20

3

Elements of Nāth Identity

e Name “Nāth”e use of the name “Nāth” (Skt. nātha) to denote

an order of human ascetics is relatively recent,dating to approximately the 18th century (SidPad. 5.43; * Ādeśapadavyākhyā folio 17, recto line 1;folio 18, recto line 8). Before this time the mem-bers of the various ascetic lineages that were tobecome the Nāth Sampradāya were known as yogī s (as they still are in the name of the modern“Nāth” organization, the above-mentioned YogiMahasabha). Householder “Nāths” were also knownthus, and it was not until the 20th century thatthey began to refer to themselves as Nāths, in a bidto elevate their status and escape the pejorativeconnotations of the name yogī / jogī , which hadcome to be associated with low-status castes andmendicant orders (Gold, 1992, 51). is has hap-pened only in Rajasthan; elsewhere householder“Nāths” are still for the most part known as yogī sor jogī s.

e names of some of the early Nāth gurus didsometimes bear the suffix -nātha, but other suf-fixes are also found, including - pāda, -pā, -deva,and -āī ; very oen the early gurus’ names arefound without any suffix at all. Meanwhile manyhumans and gods with no connection with theNāth Sampradāya have names that bear the suffix

-nātha, for example, the Jaina saints Ādinātha,Pārśvanātha, and so on; the 16th-century guru ofthe → Vallabha Sampradāya, Vit ṭ ḥalnāth; → Kr ṣ ṇ ạas Gopīnāth, the lord of the shepherd girls; and→ Vis ṇ ụ as Jagannāth at Puri (see → Orissa). Ina modern gazetteer, a group of five Vais ṇ ạva→ tīrthas spread across India is known as the PañcNāth (Tīrthān k̇, 561). From at least the 10th cen-tury (see below), we find groupings of semidivineNāths, but they are not associated with a human“Nāth” Sampradāya. Prior to the 18th century,when the word nātha/nāth is found on its

own, whether in Sanskrit or a regional language,it simply means “Lord” and is usually used toaddress a god or an important person. Manycommentators and scholars have seized uponinstances of the word or suffix -nātha as indicativeof the existence of a Nāth Sampradāya, but untilthe 18th century, the word was not used as such.e hybrid Hindi/Sanskrit term “Nāth siddha,”which is commonly used in secondary literatureto denote members of the ascetic Nāth Sampradāyathroughout the ages, is not found in premodernliterature.

It might be supposed that the forerunners ofthe Nāths were denoted by the name “ yogī ,” butthis term is also ambiguous as it has been used, atleast until the modern period, to denote yoga-

practicing ascetics belonging to a wide rangeof orders, in particular those of the Daśanāmīsam ṇyāsī s and Rāmānandīs. In the absence ofnomenclature as a definitive criterion for identi-fying “Nāths” and in the light of there being noevidence of an organized pan-Indian order ofNāths prior to the beginning of the 17th century,in order to analyze the history of the NāthSampradāya during its formative period, the his-tory of the various elements that constitute Nāthidentity today will now be examined in turn. Atthe risk of historical inaccuracy, for the sake ofconvenience, the forerunners of the membersof what is now known as the Nāth Sampradāya areherein usually referred to as “Nāths.”

e Nine NāthsWhile there are some relatively early (c. 10th-century) descriptions of groupings of Nāths (seebelow), the tradition of nine Nāths to whichtoday’s Nāth Sampradāya traces its origins hasmore names in common with those found in earlylists of siddhas than in early lists of Nāths. esiddhas were semidivine humans who had becomeperfected (siddha) as a result of their mastery of

yoga, alchemy (→ rasāyana), and other esotericmeans. ey were renowned for their magicalpowers (siddhis) and, oen, their antinomianbehavior. All these features are attributed tothe various nine Nāths associated with the NāthSampradāya. Early lists of siddhas (which usuallyname, or purport to name, 84), such as those foundin the 13th-century Tibetan account ascribed toAbhayadattaśrī, the early 14th-century MaithiliVarn ạratnākara (57), and the 15th-century SanskritHat ḥapradīpikā (1.5–1.8), include Ādinātha, Mat-syendra, Goraks ạ, Cauran ġī, Jālandhara, Carpat ạ,

Kānhapa, and Bhartr ḥari, all of whom appear insome or all of the later lists of the nine Nāths.e popularity of the siddhas transcended sec-

tarian boundaries, and the siddhas themselvesappear from their legends not to have claimedallegiance to any particular sects. Because of theappearance of the names of siddhas associatedwith the Nāth tradition in Buddhist lists ofsiddhas, such as that of Abhayadattaśrī, some scholarshave postulated Buddhist origins for the Nāths.ere is nothing in the doctrines associated withthe Nāth tradition to support this.



4/20

4

First in most of the lists of nine Nāths isĀdinātha (“First Nāth”), who is identified withŚiva. While the Nāth tradition is and always hasbeen predominantly Śaiva, recent centuries have

seen an increased emphasis on this aspect of theiridentity. Nāths depicted in medieval miniaturesdo not sport the archetypally Śaiva rudrāks ạ seednecklaces and tripun ḍ ṛa ash forehead markingsthat are commonplace today. Goraks ạnāth nowa-days is oen identified with Śiva, supplantingĀdinātha. A popular Hindi Nāth → mantra is om ̣śiv goraks .̣

ere is a great deal of variety in the numberand names of the members of the many lists of theNāths aer Ādinātha (see e.g. Dvivedi, 1996,25–27; White, 1996, 90–95). Early taxonomies ofNāths found in texts of tantric traditions associ-ated with forerunners of the Nāth Sampradāya donot agree on their number: those of the Kubjikācult (see → Kashmir, → Bhairava) talk of 25(Sanderson, 2009, 297n704), other works ofthe Paścimāmnāya (the “Western Transmission”of Kaula Tantra) and those of the Trika (see→ Tantra) and → Kālī cults give lists of four(Sanderson, 1988, 688), the S ạt ṣāhasrasam ḥitā describes 18 (Schoterman, 1982, 35–38), and the13th-century Matsyendrasam ḥitā (9.9) mentionsa group of seven (see also Kiss, 2009, 36–38). Noneof these lists includes Goraks ạ (or Śiva) among its

Nāths; only those of the Trika and Kālī cults or thelater Śāmbhava variant of Śaivism (on the lattersee Kiss, 2009, 40) include Matsyendra. efirst list of Nāths to include Goraks ạ is in aninscription from near the Kalleśvara Temple atKukkunoor in Karnataka dated to 1279 (LewisRice, 1903, 154–155). is list, which includes thenames of eight (or possibly nine) Nāths, does notmention Matsyendra but does include Ādinātha.

e earliest text to give a list of nine Nāths thatcorresponds with those later associated with theNāth Sampradāya is the Telegu Navanāthacaritra

(Deeds of the Nine Nāths), which dates to the late15th century (Rao, Shulman & Subrahmanyam,1992, 125). is text’s nine Nāths include Śiva,Mīna (i.e. Matsyendra), Goraks ạ, Sāran ġadhara(i.e. Cauran ġī), and Nāgārjuna. e nine Nāthsare not mentioned in any of the Sanskrit texts onHat ḥa Yoga associated with the Nāths; in fact, noSanskrit texts include lists of nine Nāths associatedwith the Nāth Sampradāya prior to the approxi-mately 18th-century Goraks ạsiddhāntasam ̣ graha,which cites a list from a Tantramahārn ạva, a work

of doubtful antiquity, doubt compounded by itsinclusion of → Dattātreya in its list of Nāths.Dattātreya has only ever been associated withthe Nāth Sampradāya in the Deccan region,

and the formalization of that association datesto approximately the 18th century, when textssuch as the Marathi Navanāthabhaktisāra sym-bolically united the Nāth Sampradāya with the→ Mahānubhāv sect by identifying nine Nāthswith nine Nārāyan ạs. e nine Nāths are notmentioned in the approximately 17th-centuryHindi works ascribed to Gorakhnāth, but thereare references to them in the approximately1600 CE Gurū Granth Sāhib (1.11; 13.3.1; 10.1[see Callewaert, 1996, 839, 1160, 1390]), theapproximately 18th-century Siddhānt Pat ạl , aritual handbook ascribed to Rāmānand (seePrasad et al., n.d., 7, 29, 31, 33–34, 37, 40), and theGoraks ̣ Upanis ạd , whose date is uncertain butis also likely to date to the 18th century. As a cor-ollary of the attempts to organize various dispa-rate groups of yogī s under the tutelage ofGoraks ạ (see below), many lists of the nine Nāthsfrom the 18th century and later do not includeGoraks ạnātha: Goraks ạ is the godhead (he isreferred to as Śrīnāth and identified with the anādianant purus ,̣ “the eternal person”; Dvivedi, 1996,27), and the nine Nāths are said to be his → avatār s.Several Sanskrit and Hindi hagiographical works

treating the deeds of the nine Nāths were com-posed in Jodhpur in the early 19th century. Todayhagiographies of the nine Nāths are widely avail-able in a variety of vernacular languages.

Individual Nāths

e names most commonly found in the lists ofNāths associated with the Nāth Sampradāya arethose of Matsyendra and Goraks ạ, with the lattergenerally said to be Matsyendra’s disciple. A sum-

mary of the data and legends on these two figuresis given below, followed by brief résumés of otherNāths.

MatsyendraMatsyendra (“Lord of the Fishes”) is knownby a variety of piscine names, including Mīna,Macchandar, and Macchaghna. He is associatedwith both the Pūrvāmnāya and Paścimāmnāya(“Eastern” and “Western”) transmissions of KaulaTantra, as well as their later southern variant



5/20

5

known as Śāmbhava, and a variety of texts associ-ated with these traditions are attributed to him.He is mentioned in → Abhinavagupta’s approxi-mately 1000 CE Tantrāloka (29.32) as a Siddha by

the name of Macchanda whose consort is calledKun k̇un ạ̄mbā (“e Goddess from the Konkan”).is and the provenance of the texts of the cultsassociated with him (see below) indicate thatMatsyendra lived in southern India, probably theDeccan, in the 9th to 10th centuries. He is said tohave reformed the practices of the Kula, whichwere associated with → yoginī s living in cremationgrounds thirsty for blood and other bodily fluids,into the slightly tamer practices of Kaulism (Sander-son, 1985, 214n110). Matsyendra’s cult, as evincedby the 13th-century Matsyendrasam ḥitā, stillinvolved sexual and other unorthodox practices.Nāth tradition and legends found in a number oftexts including the Matsyendrasam ḥitā and theearly 15th-century Maithili Goraks ạvijaya main-tain that Matsyendra’s disciple Goraks ạ furtherreformed Matsyendra’s licentious ways, rescuinghim from ensnarement in the land of women.

Goraks ạIn the process of reforming the practices of Mat-syendra, Goraks ạ (who is known as Gorakh in vernacular languages) is said to have founded theascetic Nāth Sampradāya and to have been the

first teacher of Hat ḥa Yoga, whose practices placegreat importance on celibacy and internalize thesexual practices of Kaula Tantra. Several Sanskrittexts on Hat ḥa Yoga are attributed to Goraks ạ aswell as an extensive corpus of vernacular verses inthe tradition of → nirgun ạ bhakti.

e first datable references to Goraks ạ arefrom the early 13th century. He is mentionedin passing in the Amr ṭakan ịkodyotanibandha ofVibhūticandra, who was born in northern Bengaltoward the end of the 12th century (Stearns, 1996).Various mentions in Harihara’s Kannada Ragales

date to a similar period, in particular, theRevan ạsiddheśvara Ragale, in which Revan ạdefeats Gorakha in a magic contest.

Other 13th-century references to Goraks ạ canbe found in the Matsyendrasam ḥitā, which wascomposed in South India (Kiss, 2009, 28); theTibetan account of the lives of the 84 siddhasascribed to Abhayadattaśrī, in which he is said tohave been born in eastern India; the Kalleśvarainscription of 1279 in Karnataka, which was men-tioned above; and an inscription at Somnath dated1287 in which he is included among a list of five

deities. Two Old Marathi works, the 1278Līl ạ̄caritra and the 1290 Jñāneśvarī , also mentionGoraks ạ, but the dating of their various recen-sions is uncertain. Two of the earliest works

on Hat ḥa Yoga, the Vivekamārtan ḍ ạ and the(*)Goraks ạśataka, which both date to the13th century and whose teachings are similarto those on yoga found in the Jñāneśvarī , wereattributed to Goraks ạ either at the time of theircomposition or not long aerward. ese earlyreferences to Goraks ạ and the provenance of thecults and texts with which he was associatedsuggest that he lived in the Deccan region in the11th to 12th centuries.

References to Goraks ạ from the 14th centuryare found in a list of siddhas in the MaithiliVarn ạratnākara; the Śārn ̇ gadharapaddhati (4372–4373), which was compiled near Jaipur in 1363; arock inscription at Itum Bahal in the KathmanduValley dated 1382 in which Madanarāma Vard-dhana, a senior minister of King Jayasthiti Malla,describes himself as gorakhātmajaśis ̣ ya, “a pupilof a descendant of Gorakh” (Vajracarya, 1975,34); and an inscription dated 1391 at the Gorakh-nath cave in Pharping, also in the KathmanduValley, which records the building by the jogī Acintanātha of stone feet of Goraks ạ for worship(Regmi, 1966, 31). e Amaraughaprabodha, aSanskrit work on yoga, is likely to date to the

14th century and was attributed to Goraks ạ. Fromthe 15th century onward, references to Goraks ạand texts attributed to him become much morecommon.

Other NāthsBelow is a list of well-known Nāths other thanMatsyendra and Goraks ạ. A wealth of conflictingand overlapping legends surrounds all of them;only their most important and best-attested char-acteristics are given here.

Jālandharnāth(or Jālandhari, Jālandharipā, Hād ịpā, Jvālendra,Bālnāth, Bālgundāī). Usually said to be fromJalandhar in Punjab and to have travelled to Ben-gal, Jālandharnāth is mentioned in texts datingback to at least the 13th century. He is oen saidto have been Matsyendra’s disciple and the guru of both Kānhapā and Gopīcand. In some impor-tant Nāth centers, such as those at Jogi Tilla inPunjab and Jodhpur in Rajasthan, he was the pre-eminent Nāth until as recently as two hundredyears ago.



6/20

6

Kānhapā(or Kānhu, Kan ẹrī, Kr ṣ ṇ ạpāda, Karn ạripā, Kāniph,Kānanīpā). Old Bengali songs by this siddha,in which he calls himself a → Kāpālika, date to

approximately the 10th century, and he is usuallysaid to have been from the Bengal region. In theGoraks ạvijaya, which was composed in the early15th century, he accompanies Goraks ạ, but inlater times, he is associated with Jālandharnāthand said to be his disciple. eir cult is oen dis-tinguished from that of Goraks ạ, and their panth (path) is not included in the twelvefold schema.

Cauran ġī(or Sāran ġadhara, Pūran ̣Bhagat). e son of KingDevapāla of Bengal, Cauran ġī’s father punished

him by cutting off his arms and legs and abandon-ing him in a forest. He was rescued by Matsyen-dra, who taught him yoga, using which he wasable to make his limbs grow back. As Pūran ̣Bhagathis story became very popular in Punjab. Hisprincipal shrine is at Sialkot, now in Pakistan.

Carpat ̣ Renowned for his expertise in alchemy, Carpat ̣ issaid to have lived in the Chamba region of theHimalayas. In the Hindi verses attributed to himhe espouses the doctrines of the avadhūta (seebelow), shunning the observances and outward

appearance of the Nāth yogī .

Bhartr ḥariKing of Ujjain before renouncing the throne tobecome a yogī . e Nāth → Bhartr ḥari is oenidentified with the poet and grammarian of thesame name. He is variously said to have been adisciple of either Goraks ạ or Jālandhara.

Gopīcand(or Gopīcandra, Govindacandra). e son ofQueen Mayanāmatī of Bengal, Gopīcand’s guru is

usually said to have been Jālandharnāth.

RatannāthFamous as both a Nāth and a Sufi (by the name ofH ạ̄jji Ratan), Ratannāth lived in the 13th centuryor earlier. His cult flourished across the north ofthe subcontinent, in particular in Punjab andNepal. He was the guru of Gūgā Pīr (see → Rajast-han), the subject of a cycle of legends from thePunjab and Rajasthan.

DharamnāthIn the 15th century, Dharamnāth settled atDhinodhar in Kacch, where he founded a Nāthmonastery, which remained important into the

20th century. He is said to have desiccated theregion as the result of his austerities.

Mastnāthe founder of the important Nāth monastery atAsthal Bohar in Haryana, Mastnāth lived in the18th century.

Some of the above Nāths, in particularGopīcand, Bhartr ḥari, and Cauran ġī (as Pūran ̣Bhagat), are the subjects of songs performed bywandering → bards. In addition there are popular

song cycles about Gūgā Pīr, Hīr and Rāñjha, andRān ị̄ Pin ġalā, in whose narratives Nāths figure orwhose protagonists become Nāth yogī s. e dom-inant themes of these cycles are royalty, renuncia-tion, and romance.

Localized Nāth Traditions

Prior to the preliminary organization of Nāthascetics into an order in the 16th to 17th centuries,their forerunners comprised various disparatelineages and localized traditions. ese different

origins continue to influence regional Nāthtraditions.

e Southe majority of the early textual and epigraphicreferences to Matsyendra and Goraks ạ are fromthe Deccan and elsewhere in peninsular India; theothers are from eastern India. Travellers’ reportsof yogī s contemporaneous with the earliest refer-ences to Goraks ạ are almost all from the MalabarCoast (e.g. Husain, 1953, 164; Rockhill, 1915,450–451). e earliest iconographic representa-

tions of Nāth-type yogī s are those found atPanhalekaji in the Konkan region, which aredated to the 13th century (Deshpande, 1986), andthe 15th-century examples from Srisailam on theDeccan plateau (Shaw, 1997) and Vijayanagara(Verghese, 1995, 113, pl. 53). Contrary to Nāthhagiographical tradition, the early accounts thatgive details about Goraks ạ do not portray him asa celibate ascetic. In Harihara’s Ragales, Goraks ạis said to be married (the Revan ạsiddheśvara Ragale describes him as living in Kolhapur withtwo wives). In the Matsyendrasam ḥitā, he is a



7/20

7

king. More than a century later, in Nepal, the ItumBahal Inscription mentions a gorakhātmaja,“a [blood] descendant of Gorakh.” Althoughthe earliest traditions maintain that Matsyendra

founded both celibate and noncelibate lineages,the latter appear to have been more prominent.Early travellers’ descriptions of yogī s oen notethat they are married. e Chinese travellerMahuan visited Cochin in 1415, where he sawmarried yogī s (Rockhill, 1915, 450–451). e“King of the Ioghes” from the west coast describedby Varthema in 1505/1506 had a wife and chil-dren, although included among his entouragewere what sound very much like celibate ascetics(Badger, 1863, 111–112).

e southern provenance of the early yogī s andtheir being married tallies with the doctrines andprovenance of the earliest texts associated withthe Nāths and their Paścimāmnāya Śaiva fore-bears. A. Sanderson (2011, 44–45) locates thewriting of the first Paścimāmnāya texts in modernMaharashtra, from where manuscripts spread toKerala, Tamil Nadu, Kashmir, east India, and theKathmandu Valley. e sacred sites taught inthe Kubjikāmata and other early Paścimāmnāyaworks “are located in various parts of the subcon-tinent with eastern India and the Deccan stronglyrepresented. e Far South, the upper Ganges valley, the Panjab, Kashmir and the North-West

are absent” (Sanderson, 2011, 77). e texts asso-ciated with the early Nāth tradition, in particularthe Kaulajñānanirn ạya and Matsyendrasam ḥitā,both of which are ascribed to Matsyendra, teach awide range of arcane tantric practices, includingrites involving sexual intercourse. As well as theirnot being celibate, in early reports yogī s are said topossess a variety of tantric siddhis and to have adisregard for the norms of Brahmanical ortho-doxy. e yogī donee in the Kalleśvara Inscriptionof 1279 is said to be an adept in a variety of magi-cal tantric arts. A Persian work called the Nizāmī

Dakanī written near Bidar in northeast Karnatakain 1430–1435 describes a Jogī called Aghornāthwho boasts of his powers of alchemy, shape shi-ing, and entering others’ bodies, and he says thatall Jogis consume wine and meat (Digby, 2004,336–339).

e earliest texts on Hat ḥa Yoga associatedwith the Nāths, the Vivekamārtan ḍ ạ and(*)Goraks ạśataka, both of which are ascribedto Goraks ạ, are likely to originate from Maha-rashtra and date to the 13th century. While thereis nothing specific in the texts to locate them, they

have much in common with the teachings foundin → Jñāndev’s Old Marathi commentary on the→ Bhagavadgītā. is text, which was composedin 1290 and is popularly known as the Jñāneśvarī ,

combines yogic teachings (ascribed to Goraks ạ)with vedantic discourse (ascribed to preceptorswhose names have the suffix -nāth) in asimilar fashion to the Vivekamārtan ḍ ạ and(*)Goraks ạśataka.

In Karnataka, on a hill on the outskirts ofMangalore on the Malabar coast, we find whatmay be the oldest Nāth monastery still in use.e Kadri mat ḥa sits on a hill above the templeof Mañjunāth, which houses three beautifulBuddhist bronzes (now interpreted as Hindu)from the 10th century. Kadri is sometimes identi-fied with Kadalīdeśa, the land in which Matsyen-dra is said in legend to have been ensnared inthe ways of wine, women, and song before beingrescued by his disciple, Goraks ạ. e first refer-ence to Nāths at Kadri is in a Tulu Inscriptiondated 1475 (Bouiller, 2008, 96). It describes oneCandranātha Od ẹya as the “King of Kadri.” Sub-sequent descriptions of the head of the mat ḥa callhim the “King of the Yogīs,” and the Nāth headof the Kadri monastery is still known (in Hindi)as the rājā yogī . An inscription dated 1490 associ-ates Kadri with the worship of Gorakhnātha(Bhatt, 1975, 294).

In 1505/1506 the Italian traveller Varthemareported how the “King of the Ioghe,” enjoyingthe protection of the Vijayanagar Empire, didindeed live like a powerful king. He ruled over“about thirty thousand people”; he and his peoplewere “considered to be saints”; every three or fouryears he would go on “a pilgrimage . . . with threeor four thousand of his people, and with his wifeand children” as well as “four or five coursers, andcivet-cats, apes, parrots, leopards, and falcons”;and he would wear a goat skin and travel “throughthe whole of India” (Badger, 1863, 111–112).

His troop undertook various austerities, and somealso carried weapons as well as items that becameNāth emblems, such as earrings and horns.

But when Pietro della Valle visited Kadri in1624, the then king of the Yogīs told him “thatformerly he had Horses, Elephants, Palanchinosand a great equipage and power before Venkatàpa Naieka took away all from him, so that now hehad very little le” (Grey, 1892, 351). Della Vallenotes that the Yogīs do not have wives (Grey,1892, 349–350). e depredations the king of theYogīs suffered at the hands of Ven k̇āt ạppa Nāyaka



8/20

8

were caused by the demise of the VijayanagarEmpire, but the reasons for his adoption of celi-bacy are unclear. e legend of the founding ofthe Nāth mat ḥa at Vittal, approximately 20 km

from Kadri, may, however, be illustrative of whathappened at Kadri. It is said that in the 17th cen-tury a troop of celibate Yogīs under the leadershipof Meharnāth came from the north and soimpressed the local king with their magical pow-ers that he gave them the territory of Vittal. Tothis day, the head of the Vittal mat ḥa is known asthe rājguru, and he occasionally functions as anofficiant at Kadri (Bouillier, 2008, 130). It seemslikely that the northern ascetic Nāth Sampradāyaalso annexed Kadri in the 17th century as part ofits claim to pan-Indian status. From the time ofthe mat ḥa’s earliest records (1860), the rājā yogī atKadri has come from northwest India. e cur-rent incumbent, like his predecessors, speaks noKannada and has very little to do with the largeand prosperous local householder Yogī caste (totheir displeasure). He is supported by devoteesfrom Rajasthan, in particular wealthy Marwaribusinessmen who have taken up residency inKarnataka.

Further information on the association ofthe Kadri mat ḥa with Yogīs of the north is likelyto be found in the Kadalīmañjunāthamāhātmya,whose oldest manuscript was copied in 1730 CE

(Nagaraju, n.d., 73) and whose 12th chapterdescribes how the illustrious northern goddessVindhyavāsinī settled in Mangalore as Man ġalādevī(Nagaraju, n.d., 71).

Today there are just eight other Nāth mat ḥas inKarnataka, one in Andhra Pradesh, and none inKerala or Tamil Nadu, but there are large num-bers of householder Nāths (who call themselves yogī s) in all the southern states.

e EastAs noted above, our earliest mention of Goraks ạ, in

the early 13th-century Amr ṭakan ịkodyotanibandha,is likely to be from the region now known asBengal. e siddha Kānhapā, who probably livedin the 10th century and is associated withJālandharnāth, also came from that area. R. Eaton(1993, 77) has noted how from the 13th centuryonward, the region comprising northern Bengaland Assam was renowned as “a fabulous andmysterious place inhabited by expert practitio-ners of the occult, of yoga, and of magic.” TwoMaithili works bear witness to the existence ofthe siddha tradition in the region, the early 14th-

century Varn ạratnākara and early 15th-centuryGoraks ạvijaya. As noted below, a Nāth yogī men-tioned in a 15th-century inscription from Kath-mandu is said to have come from Gaud ạdeśa,

and Nāth yogī s feature in the 16th-centurySekaśubhodaya, a Sanskrit work from the east.

However, despite these indications, there isno evidence of the ascetic Nāth Sampradāya flour-ishing in Bengal until the 18th century (Bandyo-padhyay, 1992, 34–36), and even then theyremained a minority. Nāth yogī s do not appear inB. Solvyns’s encyclopedic etchings of the Hinducastes and sects of Bengal in the late 18th century(Hardgrave, 2004, 314–330). In Risley’s Tribes andCastes of Bengal , ascetic Nāth yogī s are hardlymentioned. Today, of about five hundred regis-tered Nāth āśrams in India, seven are in Bengal.Meanwhile persons belonging to the householderYogī/Jugi castes are numerous in the region (392,000in the 1921 census).

Nepale earliest evidence of Nāths in Nepal is aninscription dated 1391 found in the Gorakhnathcave in Pharping, which records the building bythe yogī Acintanātha of stone feet of Goraks ạ forworship (Regmi, 1966, 31). e first evidence ofthe cult of Matsyendra (which was distinct fromthat of Goraks ạ) dates to the same period (Locke,

1980, 432–433). A copperplate inscription in theKās ṭ ḥaman ḍ ạpa Temple in Kathmandu’s DurbarSquare dated 1455 may be the earliest evidence ofan order of Nāth yogī ascetics. It records the pur-chase of land by the yogī Caitanyanātha, fromGaud ạdeśa, for avadhūtakas. e word avadhūta means one who has “cast off ” sam ṣāra and is, tothis day, used exclusively to refer to ascetics. How-ever, inscriptions from the same period suggestthat the jogī s in the Kathmandu Valley werehouseholders who practiced tantric rites (Bouil-lier, 1986, 130); it may be that they patronized

ascetics of all orders.e earliest clear-cut evidence of specificallyNāth ascetics in Nepal dates to the 17th century,when the 12 Yogī panths are first mentionedin the region (Unbescheid, 1980, 175–177, 197;Locke, 1980, 436). A wealth of 18th-century leg-ends and inscriptions associates Nāth asceticswith the Gorkhā (Gurkha) conquest of the west ofthe country (Bouillier, 1986, 128).

Today there are ten Nāth yogī centers in Nepal.Ascetic Nāths are greatly outnumbered by themembers of the various Yogī castes.



9/20

9

e NorthwestWith two exceptions (Yogi, 1924, 23, who sayshe was born on the banks of the Godāvarī, and alate Goraks ạsahasranāmastotra, which has him as

coming from the south, namely the country ofBad ḥava; White, 1996, 134, 422n82), Nāth tradi-tion has it that Goraks ạ came from North India(usually Punjab, but also Nepal or Bengal; see,e.g., Dvivedi, 1996, 96). However, other than hisbeing named as the progenitor of one variety ofHat ḥa Yoga in the Śārn ̇ gadharapaddhati, whichwas compiled near Jaipur in 1362, the oldest men-tions of him from that region date to the 15th cen-tury. Despite numerous reports of interactionsbetween Sufis and Jogis from the 13th centuryonward (Digby, 1970) and Ibn Battuta’s tales

of yogī s in Delhi and near Khajuraho in 1342(Husain, 1953, 165–166), there is no further men-tion of Goraks ạ himself in northwest India untilthe Alakhbānī of ‘Abd Al-Quddus Gangohi,which probably dates to 1480 (Weightman, 1992,171–172). e legend of Gorakh’s rescuing Mat-syendra was told in Delhi in 1400 by the SufiShaykh Gesūdarāz, but the yogī s’ names are notreported (Digby, 1970, 32–34).

What information we do have about the Yogīcults that were existent in the northwest in theearly period suggests that they traced their lin-eages to Nāths other than Goraks ạ. Gesūdarāz

recounts a meeting with the yogī Bālgundāī, whichtook place toward the end of the 14th century.Bālgundāī appears to identify himself withJālandharnāth (Digby, 1970, 27–30). One ofthe most important Nāth yogī monasteries (untilPartition) was that at Jogi Tilla in Punjab (seee.g. Hoyland, 1922, 113–116). Until at least the17th century, the yogī s there traced their lineageto Jālandharnāth/Bālnāth, and the monasterywas known as Bālnāth T ịlla, aer which time itbecame known as Gorakh T ịlla. Jālandharnāthwas also the tutelary deity of the Nāth yogī s who

controlled the Jodhpur court in the first half of the19th century.e important yogī shrine at Dhinodhar in

Kacch was established by Dharamnāth in about1450, and his descendants held him to be thefounder of the Jogī sect until the 20th century,when they began to defer to Gorakhnāth(Postans, 1839, 269; Briggs, 1938, 116).

Details of the practices of these northwestern yogī s are sparse, but what information we canglean suggests that they were adepts of tantricpractices. Bālgundāī offered Gesūdarāz the secrets

of alchemy and eye-black for invisibility, botharchetypal tantric siddhis, as well as a drug forthe retention of semen, safety from enemies, andthe power of making one’s bed move by itself

(Digby, 1970, 22–23). Dharamnāth is renownedfor having stood on his head for 12 years (Briggs,1938, 117). Such inversions are an ancient asceticpractice, associated with the yogic retention ofsemen.

e teachings on yoga found in Nāth texts fromthe northwest present a distinct tradition fromthat found elsewhere. One particular feature is theidea of the daśamadvāra, the tenth door of thebody through which the life force of the enlightened yogī is said to exit and which is only mentioned innorthern works such as the Amaraughaśāsana,Gorakhbān ị̄ , and Siddhasiddhāntapaddhati.

e northern yogī s were celibate. e Jesuitpriest Anthony Monserrate noted that at Jogi Tillain the late 16th century there were lay membersof the order in addition to the celibate yogī s(Hoyland, 1922, 115). e yogī followers ofGorakh described in the 16th- and 17th-centurySufi romances known as Premākhyāns are celi-bate ascetics (nominally at least – they are not allbeyond temptation). From the late 16th centuryonward, there are many depictions of yogī s inMughal miniatures, but none shows female yogī s.e same situation obtains to this day: there are

almost no female Nāth ascetics (Bouillier, 2008,68n15).

e 16th and 17th centuries saw the composi-tion of a corpus of Hindi verses ascribed to vari-ous Nāths, in particular Gorakhnāth. While thiscorpus is somewhat heterogenous, both praisingand scorning typical Nāth practices such as yoga,alchemy, and sexual rites, it is infused with thenirgun ạ bhakti of the → Sants that was flourishingin North India at the time. Since this period, theactivities of the ascetic Nāth Sampradāya havebeen concentrated in the north and west of India.

e Twelve Panths

e oldest organizational principle of the Nāths istheir division into 12 panths (paths). e first ref-erences to yogī s being organized thus are foundin Sikh writings from the very beginning of the17th century (Gurū Granth Sāhib 9.2; 34.2 [Calle-waert, 1996, 939, 941]; Vāran ̇Bhāī Gurdās 8.13).e earliest list of the names of the 12 panths isfound in the Dabistān-i Mazāhib (Shea & Troyer,



10/20

10

1843, vol. II, 128), which was composed in the firsthalf of the 17th century. ere is a great deal of variety in the many subsequent lists of panths, anda parallel division of 18 panths is also found. Today,

a list of 12 propagated by the Yogi Mahasabha isauthoritative: Satyanāthī, Dharmanāthī, Rāmnāthī,Bairāg, Kapilāni, Āīpanthī, Nat ẹśvarī, Gan ġanāthī,Rāval, Pāvpanthī, Mannāthī, and Pāgalpanthī(Bouillier, 2008, 32–35; see also Briggs, 1938, 75;Dvivedi, 1996, 11–15).

Of the 12 panths, the Āīpanth is perhaps theoldest. Its current headquarters are located atthe Asthal Bohar Nāth mat ḥa in Haryana. eĀīpanth is mentioned in the Gurū Granth Sāhib (28.3 [Callewaert, 1996, 6]), wherein it refers tothe highest order of yogī s. Members of this panth say that āī means māī (mother, goddess), and that-āī was the nominal suffix used by all members ofthe panth until it was changed to -nāth by Mastnāth(Briggs, 1938, 67–68). e tantric yogī encoun-tered by Gesūdarāz in the 14th century was calledBālgundāī (Digby, 1970, 22). A link with earlierKaula yoginī cults is suggested by the wivesof Matsyendranāth’s six noncelibate sons anddeities worshipped in early Deccan yoginī cultshaving names ending in -āī (TĀ. 29.29–42;Sanderson, 2011, 76).

Not all Nāths are included in the panth rubric.In particular, the followers of Kānhapā, whose

practices are said to be of the Kāpālika tradition,are excluded from the system (Briggs, 1938, 69;Dvivedi, 1996, 80).

Appearance

Today the appearance of Nāth householders is, onthe whole, little different from that of other Indianhouseholders, bar the diminishing number whowear ochre clothes, turbans, and, in some cases,hooped earrings through the cartilage of their

ears. Nāth ascetics also dress similarly to otherNorth Indian Śaiva ascetics. Evidence from min-iature paintings dating to the 16th century onwardshows that in the past their apparel was more dis-tinctive. ey oen wore long cloaks, eitherpatchwork or made from a single piece of cloth.Peculiar headgear was common, with bothpointed and bowler-style hats depicted. ManyNāth ascetics are portrayed wearing necklacesfrom which hang multicoloured strips of cloth.ese signified high status in the sect (Hoyland,1922, 114). ey are also shown wearing and using

yogapat ṭ ạs, bands for supporting the body whilesitting cross-legged. ese insignia are now found very rarely, if at all.

Two aspects of the appearance of today’s Nāths,

both householders and ascetics, are particularlyemblematic of their identity: the hooped earringsworn through the cartilage of both ears, and thesīm ̣ gī , the small horn worn on a thread around theneck. ese will now be examined in detail.

Earringse wearing of hooped earrings in slits in the car-tilage of the ears cut by a dagger at the time ofinitiation is peculiar to the Nāths and is their mostprominent distinguishing feature, on account ofwhich they are known to non-Nāths as →Kānphat ạ̄(“split-eared”) yogī s, a name eschewed by theNāths themselves, who prefer Darśanī yogī . eearrings can be made from a wide variety of mate-rials, including rhinoceros horn, wood, crystal,and gold. Not all Nāth ascetics wear earrings.ose who do not wear earrings are known asAughars (for householders in Nepal, the corre-sponding term is “Kunvār” – Bouillier, 1986, 146).ere are many legends about the origins of thepractice (see, e.g., Dvivedi, 1996, 15; Briggs, 1938,9–10), in one of which Matsyendra is said to havebeen rewarded by Śiva with the boon of emulatinghis appearance, including the wearing of earrings.

Since at least the time of the composition of the→ Mahābhārata, the wearing of earrings in Indiahas signified high status, both divine and secular.Textual references from the end of the 1st millen-nium show that → Kāpālika ascetics wore earrings,and the depictions of Nāths at Panhalekaji andSrisailam, dating to the 13th and early 16th centu-ries, respectively, show them to be wearing hoopedearrings. However, even among ascetics, the wear-ing of earrings was not the sole preserve of theNāths or their forerunners. Siddhas not associ-ated with the Nāths are oen depicted wearing

earrings in Tibetan iconography, and 16th-cen-tury miniatures depicting members of the Giriand Puri suborders of the Daśanāmīs sam ṇyāsī sshow them to be wearing earrings identical tothose worn by Nāths in contemporaneous images.

What does set the Nāths apart from otherorders is their wearing of earrings through thecartilage of their ears, which no other ascetic orderhas ever done. e earliest evidence for this prac-tice dates to the late 18th century, when we findthe first such depictions in miniatures. e earli-est literary occurrences of the name kānphat ạ̄



11/20

11

date to the same period. e first depictions ofNāths in Jodhpur during the Nāths’ period inpower in the early part of the 19th century showthem to be wearing earrings in the lobes of their

ears, but soon aer, within two decades, they aredepicted as Kānphat ạ̄s. e Nāth custom of wear-ing earrings in the cartilage of the ears is associ-ated with Gorakhnāth. In some legends, he is saidto have instigated the practice in order to distin-guish his followers from those of Kānhapā andJālandharnāth. Aer their adoption of this prac-tice, the wearing of earrings became so closelyassociated with the Nāths that most other asceticorders ceased to wear earrings of any sort.

HornsNot all Nāth ascetics (and relatively few Nāthhouseholders) wear earrings, but all Nāths wearthe sīm ̣ gnād janeū, the long black woollen threadon which a very small horn (the sīm ̣ gī ), a rudrāks ạ seed, and a flat ring made of metal, wood, orbone (the pāvitrī ) are strung. e horn, which isreally more of a whistle, is blown during morningand evening worship and before eating. It can bemade of a variety of materials, from gold to plas-tic. Horns are mentioned in the earliest descrip-tions of yogī s. Ibn Battuta wrote of the yogī s heencountered in 1342 that “they have a kind ofhorn which they blow at daybreak, at the close of

the day and at nightfall” (Husain, 1953, 166). e“Ioghe” encountered by Ludovico di Varthema in1505/1506

[a]ll generally carry a little horn at their neck;and when they go into a city they all in com-pany sound the said little horns, and this theydo when they wish alms to be given to them.(Badger, 1863, 112)

e Sekaśubhodaya, an early 16th-century San-skrit work from Bengal, tells of the yogī Candranātha being awoken from his meditation

by other yogī s blowing their horns.e tiny whistles carried by today’s Nāths pro-duce a quiet, high-pitched whistle that would notbe of much use in waking someone or in alertingpotential alms donors. Miniatures from the 16thand 17th centuries show Nāth ascetics wearinganimals’ horns, probably antelopes’, which areconsiderably larger than today’s sīm ̣ gī s, on shortstrings around their necks, without a rudrāks ạ or pāvitrī .

It is not until the 19th century that Nāths arefirst depicted wearing their horns on long threads.

is may have been part of a process of elevatingtheir status: the thread takes the name janeū,which is that of the similarly long sacred thread(→ yajñopavīta) worn by Brahmans, and in some

19th-century paintings is shown being worn overthe shoulder like the Brahmanical janeū. e firstdepictions of the sīm ̣ gī, rudrāks ạ, and pāvitrī ensemble are from the early 20th century.

e Pātradevatā

Each of the important communal Nāth mat ḥas oftoday, as well as the jamāt , their itinerant troop,has as its central object of worship a pātradevatā,a small clay pot containing elements of Nāth iden-tity: a sīm ̣ gī , a pāvitrī , earrings, a rudrāks ạ rosary,and a chillum, the clay pipe used for smoking can-nabis (Bouillier, 2008, 43). e pātradevatā is “adeity identified with Gorakh Nāth himself ”(Bouillier, 2009, 142–143). Although pots havelong been among the ritual paraphernalia oftantric cults associated with the Nāths (see, e.g., MatSa. chs. 10 and 45), the central position of the pātra in Nāth ritual today seems to be a relativelyrecent innovation. It is not mentioned in theHindi works attributed to Gorakhnāth, but we dofind some references to it in works of the 17th cen-tury such as the Pañc Mātrā and the Hindi verses

attributed to Gopīcand and Carpat ̣.e contents of the Nāths’ pātradevatā (which,

although nominally secret, were recently revealedon film and in print by officials of the Yogi Maha-sabha; Bouillier, 2008, 43) include items that haveonly recently become Nāth insignia, namely, the pāvitrī and the chillum. e Nāths are somewhatnotorious for their consumption of intoxicants(a practice that the Yogi Mahasabha is trying tostamp out). Cannabis has been used in India sinceabout the 11th century CE, but it has only beensmoked from the 16th century, aer the arrival of

tobacco (see→

intoxication). Furthermore, theuse of a chillum on its own, rather than in the bowlof a hookah, appears from the many depictions ofthe consumption of cannabis in miniature paint-ings to have been a 19th-century innovation.

Ādeś

Today all Nāths, both ascetics and householders,greet one another by saying “ādeś ,” which means“[please give me your] order.” ere is no



12/20

12

mention of this word in the context of yogī s ineither Sanskrit or vernacular literature prior tothe 18th century, when we find it in theSiddhasiddhāntapaddhati (6.97–98) and in atext devoted to explaining the word, the* Ādeśapadavyākhyā. Shah Abdul Latif of Bhit,also writing in the eighteenth century, mentions aclass of ascetic called “Ādesī” (Sorley, 1966, 348–355). In early accounts of yogī s, they are said tocall out “Gorakh, Gorakh” rather than ādeś (GurūGranth Sāhib 11.4.1 [Callewaert, 1996, 1160];Kabīr Granthāvalī, pad 128.7–8).

In the Yogisam ̣ pradāyāvis ḳr ṭi (447–450), it isclaimed that there is no doctrinal basis for the yogī s’ use of the word ādeś and that the greetingshould in fact be ādīśa, that is, Ādinātha/Śiva.

Nāths and Power

Various scholars have claimed that the Nāth yogī shave a history of being militarized – indeed, somehave said that they were the first militarized Hinduorder – but this results from mistakenly identify-

Fig. 2: Seven Nāth yogī s, circa 17th century (© British Library – India Office Select Materials,Shelfmark J.22,15).



13/20

13

ing all yogī s as Nāths. In the many reports ofskirmishes between groups of ascetics in NorthIndia between the 16th and 19th centuries, noneis said to have involved Nāths, but the combat-

ants, in particular Daśanāmī nāgā sam ṇyāsī s, areoen referred to as yogī s. On being initiated,Nāths take a vow not to bear weapons (Rose, 1911,401), and the first overtly Nāth Sanskrit text, theSiddhasiddhāntapaddhati, pours scorn on thosewho do so (6.64). On a practical level, Kānphat ạ̄ yogī s cannot fight because it would be easy fortheir earrings to be ripped out, the consequence ofwhich is expulsion from the order (Bouillier, per-sonal communication, 2010).

us the Nāth Sampradāya did not, unlike theircontemporaries the Daśanāmī sam ṇyāsī s andRāmānandīs, develop military units (→ akhār ạ̄s),nor do they appear to have had those orders’ tastefor trade and banking. e militarization of theRāmānandīs in the early 18th century was closelyconnected with their patronage by the Jaipurmonarchy. e sam ṇyāsī akhār ạ̄s, however,were more mercenary, fighting for whoever theythought would benefit them most and achievingconsiderable influence and wealth as a result. In ahandful of isolated incidents, the Nāths did brieflyachieve positions of power at royal courts, butthese appear to have been the result of the cha-risma of individual Nāths rather than a deliberate

policy of the Nāth Sampradāya.e best-known example of Nāths achieving

political power was in Jodhpur in the first half ofthe 19th century. Maharaja Man Singh was con- vinced that the magical intercession of Ayas DevNath had won him the throne and, to the chagrinof many, including the British and his Rajputcourt, entrusted the running of his kingdom toNāth ministers for the best part of his 40-yearreign. He patronized Nāth scholarship, collectedNāth manuscripts, and wrote Nāth eulogies andhagiographic verses of his own. e Man Singh

Pustak Prakash library in the Mehrangarh fort inJodhpur houses much the most extensive collec-tion of Nāth manuscripts in India, most of whichdate to Man Singh’s reign.

Elsewhere in Rajasthan (Jaisalmer, Udaipur,and Kanauj; Bouillier, 1986, 134; Diamond, 2006),there are legends of Nāths empowering kings,oen by magical means such as the gi of a swordwhich confers invincibility on its bearer, althoughit is not always clear to what extent these legendswere fabricated to legitimize reigns. A similar

situation obtains in the Himalayan region. Oneincident, whose historicity is beyond doubt,was Bhagavantnāth’s assistance of King Pr ṭhvīNārāyan ̣ Śāh in his quest to unify Nepal in the

18th century (Bouillier, 1991). Similar tales aretold, albeit on a smaller scale, about Jumla andCaughera in Nepal, Dewalgarh in Tehri Garhwal,and Champawat in Kumaon (Bouillier, 1989,197–200).

Places

Important Nāth mat ḥas and temples include AsthalBohar in Haryana, where Mastnāth establisheda monastery in the 18th century; Jwalamukhi inHimachal Pradesh, an ancient place of pilgrimageand goddess worship; Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh,whose Gorakhnāth Temple was established in the17th century; Devi Patan, an ancient center ofgoddess worship also in Uttar Pradesh; Haridwarin Uttaranchal, where the headquarters the YogiMahasabha are now located but whose impor-tance for the sect seems to be relatively recent;Caughera in Nepal, whose monastery was patron-ized by the state in the 18th to 20th centuries; andKadri in Karnataka, which, as we have seen, hasbeen a Nāth monastery since at least the 15th cen-tury. Among Nāth centers, which were previously

important but whose influence has waned, areDhinodhar in Kacch and the city of Jodhpur.Two important Nāth centers that date to the16th century are now in Pakistan: Jogi Tilla inPunjab and Gorkhatri near Peshawar. Until Parti-tion, Jogi Tilla (which has also been known asboth Bālnāth T ịlla and Gorakh T ịlla) was gener-ally recognized as the headquarters of the Nāths,but since then, the Gorakhnāth temples at Harid-war and Gorakhpur have vied for primacy, withthe latter currently enjoying greater influence.

In addition to the above important centers,

Nāth ascetics visit most of the well-known Hindupilgrimage sites, in particular those of Śaiva orŚākta orientation. Numerous shrines and pilgrim-age centres are of particular importance for Nāths,including the Pashupatinath Temple in Kath-mandu, Amarnath Cave in Kashmir, Kapurthalain Punjab, Girnar in Gujarat, and Tryambakesh-war in Maharashtra. Two previously popularNāth pilgrimage places are now in → Pakistan:Sialkot (the home of Pūran ̣Bhagat) and Hing Laj.e latter, which is situated in a remote part of the



14/20

14

akran coast in Baluchistan, was the most impor-tant of the Nāths’ pilgrimage places: it was theduty of every yogī to visit it once.

Doctrine

e first earthly guru of the Nāths, Matsyendra, issaid to have brought the Kaula tantric doctrine(→ Tantra) to the world (Sanderson, 1988, 681).An important early (c. 10th-cent.) text attributedto him, the Kaulajñānanirn ạya, teaches Kauladoctrines. e Matsyendrasam ḥitā, a 13th-cen-tury compendium of teachings on yoga and ritualattributed to him, describes its doctrine asśāmbhava. is South Indian variant of Śaivismderives from the eastern and western Kaulastreams, but it also marks a moment in the historyof yoga when yoga started to detach itself fromsectarian moorings (Kiss, 2009, 97). is necessi-tated the elimination of sect markers such as dei-ties, mantras, and metaphysics. Subsequent Nāthworks on yoga continue this trend of antisectari-anism, and it is not until the approximately18th-century Siddhasiddhāntapaddhati, whichitself marks a moment when the Nāth Sampradāyawas seeking to establish a solid sectarian identity,that a specifically Nāth metaphysics is expounded.e Siddhasiddhāntapaddhati teaches the cre-

ation of the world from → brahman, through→ śakti and the elements (→ mahābhūtas), to thebeginnings of human life. It includes descriptionsof the components of the subtle body and howthey can be used in yogic practice, together withmicrocosmic and macrocosmic parallels betweenthe body and the universe.

Practice

e Nāths have long been associated with a vari-

ety of practices, through which they are saidto have attained siddhis, magical powers, and→ jīvanmukti, liberation while living. Oen theyare said to achieve the latter in a body madeimmortal through yoga or alchemy. eir masteryover death, which is personified as → Yama, is arecurrent theme of their hagiography, much ofwhich also mentions the miracles they effected bythe use of their siddhis, such as the ability to fly orto break droughts.

Although the current religious practice ofNāths, both ascetics and householders, conforms

on the whole to the norms of Hindu devotionalobservances, with some Nāths even patronizing vedic rituals, they are still associated with a varietyof tantric practices, in particular tantric ritual,

alchemy, and yoga.

Tantra

e forerunners of the Nāths practiced variantsof Kaula Tantrism (see → Tantra), all of whichare effectively extinct today except for theDaks ịn ạ̄mnāya (“Southern”) stream known as→ Śrīvidyā, on whose practices Nāth tantric ritualis based today. e chief goddess of currentNāth yogī ritual Paddhatis is the same as thatof Śrīvidyā: Bālāsundarī or Tripurāsundarī (YogīVilāsnāth, 2010). e Paddhatis describe a varietyof mantras and → man ḍ ạlas for ritual use. emost important rite is the secret śan k̇had ḥāl , inwhich Bālāsundarī (as Yogmāyā) is propitiatedusing various substances, including cannabis,which appear to be tamer versions of sexual fluidsused in similar rites practiced by householdercastes connected with the Nāths (Khan, 1994).e śan k̇had ḥāl is a key part of Nāth yogī s’ funeralrites (Bouillier, 1986, 155).

Alchemy

Included among the siddhas were several adeptsof alchemy (rasāyana), some of whom were latercoopted into the Nāth Sampradāya. e mostfamous was Nāgārjuna; others include Nityanāth,Carpat ̣i, and Goraks ạ himself.

Alchemy is the practice most oen noted inearly records and accounts of Nāth yogī s. MarcoPolo remarked on how the yogī s he encounteredlived for two hundred years thanks to the elixirsof mercury and sulphur they ate (White, 1996, 9).

In the 17th century, the emperor Aurangzebrequested mercury from the abbot of a Nāth yogī monastery in the Punjab (Goswamy & Grewal,1967). To this day, a small number of Nāth yogī sare known for their alchemical prowess (Bouillier,2008, 62, 109, 174).

Yoga

e Nāths have long been associated with thepractice of Hat ḥa→ Yoga, of which Goraks ạ is said



15/20

15

to have been the innovator. e earliest formula-tion of Hat ḥa Yoga is found in the approximately13th-century Dattātreyayogaśāstra, a text notcomposed in a Nāth milieu. Its techniques were

used to preserve bindu, semen, the essence of vitalpower. ese techniques were to a certain extentincompatible with those of the yoga of thePaścimāmnāya forerunners of the Nāths, such asthe raising of kun ḍ ạlinī (see→Yoga) and other tantric visualizations, as well as sexual rites. e earlyNāth Hat ḥa Yoga texts, such as the Vivekamārtan ḍ ạ,(*)Goraks ạśataka, Khecarīvidyā, and Hat ḥapra-dīpikā, overlaid onto this Hat ḥa Yoga their yoga techniques (which are classified in theDattātreyayogaśāstra and later works as laya- yoga). With the success of the Hat ḥapradīpikā,this synthesis became the dominant form ofHat ḥa Yoga and remains so to this day.

e Nāths’ reinvention of Hat ḥa Yoga wasa continuation of the process begun in the Matsyendrasam ḥitā. It involved a reformation oftantric ritual, relocating it to the body of the individual yogī and doing away with Tantra’s complexparaphernalia and transgressive rites. is isstated explicitly in these early texts. e final verseof the (*)Goraks ạśataka says,

We drink the dripping liquid called bindu,“the drop,” not wine; we eat the rejection of theobjects of the five senses, not meat; we do notembrace a sweetheart but the sus ụmnā nād ị̄ ,her body curved like kuśa grass; if we must haveintercourse, it takes place in a mind dissolved inthe void, not in a vagina. (GoŚat. 101)

In the context of the practice of khecarīmudrā, animportant Hat ḥa Yoga practice in which the yogī inserts his tongue into the cavity above the sopalate in order to drink the nectar of immortality,the Hat ḥapradīpikā says (3.46–48),

[e yogī ] should constantly eat the meat of thecow and drink the liquor of the gods. I reckon

him to be a Kaula; the others are destroyersof the Kula. By the word “cow” the tongue ismeant, because the insertion of [the tongue] atthe palate is the eating of the meat of the cow,which destroys great sins. e essence that flowsfrom the moon, brought about by the fire gener-ated by the tongue’s insertion, is the liquor of thegods. (HP. 3.46–48)

Although the Nāths’ adoption and adaptation ofHat ḥa Yoga was very successful – their Hat ḥaYoga became synonymous with yoga – the Nāthsappear not to have practiced their invention very

assiduously. ere have been few celebrated Nāthpractitioners of Hat ḥa Yoga since the time of thecomposition of the Hat ḥapradīpikā. No new textson Hat ḥa Yoga have been composed by the Nāths,

and none of the many modern schools of yoga is from a Nāth milieu. Meanwhile, the ascetic tra-ditions among which the first formulations ofHat ḥa Yoga originated, namely, the forerunnersof the Daśanāmī sam ṇyāsī s and the Rāmānandīs,adopted the new kun ḍ ạlinī -oriented yoga of theNāths and continue to write about and practice itup to the present day.

e Avadhūta

One reason for the Nāth yogī s’ apathy towardHat ḥa Yoga is that they, as much as any otherascetic order, espouse the virtues of the avadhūta,he who has “cast off” → sam ṣāra and pours scornon all worldly activity, including religious prac-tice. e avadhūta takes to its logical conclusionnirgun ạ bhakti, devotion to the formless divine.Rather than by engaging in complicated spiritualpractice, → liberation is achieved through sahaja- yoga (natural yoga), whose only real practice (ifany at all) is the repetition of the name of thedivine. e locus classicus of the doctrine of theavadhūta is the Avadhūtagītā, a text of uncertain

date said to have been composed by the godDattātreya. is attribution has led scholars,probably mistakenly, to associate the text with theNāth Sampradāya, but, whether or not this attri-bution is justified, its carefree attitude is mirroredby texts that certainly are the products of a Nāthmilieu, such as the Siddhasiddhāntapaddhati andsome of the verses of the Gorakhbānī . In its lasttwo chapters, the Siddhasiddhāntapaddhati, aerteaching the doctrines outlined above, paradoxi-cally denounces all learning and practice in apaean to the avadhūta.

Texts

ere is a huge corpus of texts attributed to Nāths,many of which are unedited. Dvivedi (1996, 95)asserts that there are stories about Gorakhnāth inevery Indian language. e following is a sum-mary of important texts attributed to Nāths,together with works that were not composed in aNāth milieu but that shed light on the NāthSampradāya.



16/20

16

Several texts have been attributed to Matsyendra,including the Kaulajñānanirn ạya, Akulavīratantra, Matsyendrasam ḥitā, Candrāvalokana, and Yoga-vis ạya. e first three are tantric compendia; the

latter two are yogic works.A huge number of works have been attributed

to Goraks ạ. ey include the Goraks ạsam ḥitā,which is an expansion of the Kubjikāmatatantra,an important Paścimāmnāya Kaula work. eGoraks ạsam ḥitā contains no references to Goraks ạ,other than in its colophons, but its ninth chapteris about Jālandharanātha. Connected, at leastin the Nāth tradition, with the Goraks ạsam ḥitā is the Bhūtiprakaran ạ, a work on alchemy alsoattributed to Goraks ạ. A perhaps contemporane-ous work on alchemy is the Rasaratnākara ofNityanātha.

Of the many works on Hat ḥa Yoga said to havebeen authored by Goraks ạ, the Vivekamārtan ḍ ạ and (*)Goraks ạśataka are among the earliest.Slightly later is the Amaraughaprabodha. eKhecarīvidyā of Ādinātha (i.e. Śiva) is anotherearly Nāth work on Hat ḥa Yoga. All of these Nāthworks on Hat ḥa Yoga were used by Svātmārāmato compile the Hat ḥapradīpikā in the 15th cen-tury, as were other texts, including the Yogabīja and Amanaskayoga, which have recently beenascribed to Goraks ạ, despite this attribution notbeing found in their manuscript colophons.

Two Old Marathi works whose first recensionswere composed in the 13th century are importantin establishing the early history of the Nāths. efirst is Jñāndev’s commentary on the Bhagavadgītā,popularly known as the Jñāneśvarī , in whichhe says he is of the lineage of Matsyendra andGoraks ạ, and teachers of → Vedānta whose namesend in -nātha. Among the Jñāneśvarī’s teachingsis a beautiful passage on kun ḍ ạlinīyoga (seeKiehnle, 2005). e other Old Marathi work is theLīl ạ̄caritra, an early text of the Mahānubhāv sectthat makes references to Nāths. Harihara’s early

13th-century Kannada Ragales similarly provideetic information on the Nāths, as does theŚūnyasampādane, a collection of tales in Kannadaabout the Vīraśaiva saints (→ Lin ġāyats), whichwas compiled over the course of the 15th century.e late 15th-century Telegu Navanāthacaritra ofGauran ạ is the first work to give a list of nineNāths corresponding to those found in later Nāthworks.

We also glean information about the yogī s ofthis early period from descriptions of their inter-actions with Sufi saints in the latters’ hagiogra-

phies (see Digby, 1970; Ernst, 2007; 2005) andfrom the tales of travellers to India from the 13thcentury onward (see the surveys in Pinch, 2006,61–70; White, 2009, 198–217).

e early 15th-century Maithili Goraks ạvijaya,which is reworked in a variety of Bengalirecensions from perhaps the 17th century onward,tells the story of Matsyendra’s rescue from theland of women by Goraks ạ. e 16th-centurySekaśubhodaya, a fictitious account of a MuslimSheikh (seka) overcoming yogī s and Brahmans, isalso from Bengal.

Perhaps the earliest Nāth work on Hat ḥa Yogafrom northwest India is the Amaraughaśāsana,whose oldest manuscript is dated 1525 CE. e16th and 17th centuries saw the production in thenorthwest of a large corpus of medieval Hinditexts attributed to Nāths, in particular Gorakhnāth.His works have been edited as the Gorakhbān ị̄ by H. Dvivedi, who also compiled a selection ofHindi works attributed to other Nāths (Dvivedi,1978).

Many texts from the same period provide infor-mation on Nāths but were not composed by them.ese include the Avadhi romances known asPremākhyāns ( Mrigāvatī, Padmāvat, Kanhāvat ,and Madhumālatī ), the Sikh Gurū GranthSāhib and the Janamsākhis (see McLeod, 1980,66–70), and the large corpus of Hindi devotional

literature not attributed to Nāths (Callewaert & deBeeck, 1991).

Texts that were products of, or are about,an organized Nāth Sampradāya date to the18th century onward. ese include the Kadalī-mañjunāthamāhātmya (see Nagaraju, n.d.), Siddha-siddhāntapaddhati, Goraks ạsiddhāntasam ̣ graha,Siddhasiddhāntasam ̣ graha, Navanāthabhaktisāra,Sudhākaracandrikā (S. Dvivedi’s early 20th-century Hindi commentary on the Padmāvat ),and Candranāth Yogī’s Yogisam ̣ pradāyāvis ḳr ṭi.

e Development of the NāthSampradāya

Nāth hagiographical tradition has it that the great yogī Goraks ạnātha founded the Nāth yogī orderperhaps one thousand years ago and disseminatedhis teachings through 12 panths. Scholars of thetradition have, on the whole (and in a mannersimilar to that displayed in the early historiographyof Buddhism), accepted the Sampradāya’s claimsand viewed the history of the order aer its estab-



17/20

17

lishment as one of steady decline, with the resultthat by the 20th century it shows “all the signs of asect in decomposition” (Eliade, 1973, 302).

Historical and ethnographic data show that the

reverse is more the case. Even if overall numbersof yogī s may have declined (and there is no way wecan be sure of this), the Yogi Mahasabha, estab-lished in the early 20th century, is the first body toattempt to have overall control of the many dispa-rate lineages of ascetic Nāths.

From the historical data given above, we mayinfer that the likely story of the development ofthe Nāth Sampradāya is as follows. Goraks ạ livedin South India, probably in the Deccan region,in the 11th or 12th century. He was a greattantric yogī , practicing rites that may have beenthose of the Śāmbhava tradition taught in the Matsyendrasam ḥita, a tradition that sought tofree itself from the exclusivity and complexity ofearlier tantric ritual. His yoga involved the visual-ization of the raising of kun ḍ ạlinī in combinationwith other physical practices, including sexualones. His cult included both celibate and married yogī s, and he was among the latter.

At a similar period, or perhaps slightly earlier,there lived in northwest India a tantric siddha called Jālandharnāth whose practices were of theKāpālika tradition and who travelled to Bengal.

ere were strong ties between South India and

Nepal in the 11th to 13th centuries (Michaels,1985; Lévi, 1905, 364–365), and subsequently thecult that had developed around Goraks ạ in SouthIndia also became established in Nepal and thecontiguous eastern region. Meanwhile, in theDeccan, the tantric yoga of Goraks ạ became lesslicentious as the celibate ascetic aspect of the cultbegan to come to the fore. e antinomian exter-nal practices of Tantra were internalized and,together with the visualizational techniques ofkun ḍ ạlinīyoga, were melded with the physicalpractices of early Hat ḥa Yoga, whose original

aim was the sublimation of sexual continence intoliberation.e creation of this classical Hat ḥa Yoga was

attributed to Goraks ạ. By this time, yogī cults,both ascetic and householder, were flourishing allover the subcontinent. In the northwest, lineagesassociated with Jālandharnāth and others hadcome into contact with Sufis as well as otherHindu ascetics, and, in the spirit of antisectarian-ism prevalent at the time, there was an interchangeof soteriological techniques and aspects of asceticlifestyle. is produced a North Indian ascetic

archetype that survives to this day, with the resultthat members of the main North Indian asceticorders, including the Nāths, are almost identicalin lifestyle and appearance.

By the 16th century, the yogī orders of theGangetic Plain held Goraks ạ to be their tutelarydeity, as evinced by the Sufi romances of theperiod known as Premākhyāns. e ascetic yogī tradition was separate from the householder yogī cults that continued to flourish in their earlyheartlands of Karnataka, Bengal, and Nepal andwhich spread to Rajasthan.

At the same time, in a process whose causes arestill open to debate, but which was enabled by the“Pax Mughalia” and precipitated by the MughalEmpire’s decline, religious identities in northernIndia began to solidify (O’Hanlon & Washbrook,2011). e details of this transition are hard toidentify – not least because Indian sects like topresent their history as ancient – but it was inthe 16th to 17th centuries that the four mainascetic orders of North India (Nāths, Daśanāmīsam ṇyāsī s, Rāmānandīs, and Udāsīs) acquiredtheir corporate identities. By 1600 the Nāth yogī swere said to comprise 12 panths, all of whoseheadquarters were in North India.

A feature of the legitimization of the three big-gest ascetic orders (those other than the morelocalized Punjab-based Udāsīs) was a claim to

pan-Indian status, which involved making tieswith monasteries in the south. In the case of theNāth yogī s, this resulted in the annexation of theKadri mat ḥa. In the early 16th century, whenthe head of the Kadri mat ḥa in Karnataka, knownas the king of the yogī s, ruled over 30 thousandsubjects, this would have proven difficult, but,as we have seen, little more than a hundred yearslater, the incumbent was in much reduced cir-cumstances. Further research may reveal moredetails of this annexation; at the moment, we canonly surmise that initially compromises were

made on both sides. e king of the yogī s wasallowed to keep his unique title and grantedsovereignty over all yogī s in the south, but he wasno longer allowed to cross the Narmadā. Todaythe king of the yogī s is chosen from among mem-bers of the northern branches of the order andpays scant attention to his supposed confinementin the south (Bouilier, 2008, 130).

is annexation did not result in the southern yogī s assimilating to the ways of the northernascetic yogī s. To this day, there are very few Nāth yogī s resident in the south, and the northern ascetics



18/20

18

are quite distinct from the southern householders.A continuing bone of contention is the southern-ers’ reverence for Dattātreya, who – as the tutelarydeity of the Jūnā akhār ạ̄, the foremost division of

the northern Nāth yogī s’ rivals, the Daśanāmīsam ṇyāsī s – has no place in their pantheon.

e 17th to 19th centuries saw further consoli-dation of the ascetic Nāth Sampradāya. Goraks ạcame to be the chief deity of almost all of the many panths, eventually supplanting Jālandhara in Raj-asthan and Punjab. Some of the panths were orig-inally Śākta and Vais ṇ ạva, but a Śaiva orientationbecame predominant. e composition of theSiddhasiddhāntapaddhati in the early 18th cen-tury was the first textual legitimization of the NāthSampradāya. During the late 18th century,Goraks ạ’s position was further reinforced byall the panths who recognized him as the leader ofthe order starting to wear their earrings throughthe cartilage of their ears, rather than the lobes.Subsequently the notion that Goraks ạ is thesupreme being – an idea that is occasionally foundin earlier sources – became accepted, with theresult that he is now held to be identical with Śiva.e final consolidation of the order occurred in1906 with the establishment of the Yogi Maha-sabha, the first organization to attempt to overseethe Nāth Sampradāya as a whole.

e Nāth ascetics’ existence as a pan-Indian

sampradāya has given them more prominencein Nāth historiography than their disparate laycounterparts. In interactions between the two, theascetics are known to emphasize their superiorityin spiritual matters, not to mention their subordi-nating householder Nāths by claiming that thelatter are the descendants of fallen ascetics. It isquite possible that the householder Nāths are infact heirs of the oldest Nāth traditions. us,in Karnataka, Nepal, and Bengal, where jogī tradi-tions have existed since the Nāths’ beginnings,there has never been a strong ascetic Nāth pres-

ence, but to this day there are well-establishedYogī castes. Furthermore, some Yogī castes, suchas those in Rajasthan, have preserved tantric ritesthat are now found in the ascetic order in sani-tized forms (and this may hold true for other Yogīcastes, most of whom have not been studied byethnographers).

Aerword

Irrespective of when Nāth ascetics were organizedinto a formal sampradāya, Nāth ascetic and

householder lineages have had a profound influ-ence on Indian religious culture over the lastthousand years. ey are the heirs to the 1st-mil-lennium traditions of siddhas and vidyādharas(wizards). e ascent of kun ḍ ạlinī through thecakras aligned along the spine, which was firsttaught by forerunners of the Nāths, has becomethe accepted blueprint for the workings of thesubtle body and the most widespread metaphorfor mystical experience. e physical techniquesfor raising kun ḍ ạlinī were synthesized by theNāths and became synonymous with yoga. ewonder-working yogī is a figure to be found in abroad range of religious literature, and it is oenthe Nāth yogī who is being invoked. e Nāths’disdain for caste hierarchy and sectarianismallowed them to mix freely and exchange ideaswith other open-minded religious specialists, suchas Sufis and nirgun ạ bhaktas, while their widelyaccepted claims to supernatural power meant thatthey had to be confronted by other religious tradi-tions, confrontations oen given literary form inmythological disputations between Gorakhnāthand the tutelary deities or founders of thoseorders, such as Dattātreya or → Kabīr. To this day,

the Nāth yogī s are esteemed by other ascetic ordersas masters of the magical arts of Tantra, and bothascetic and householder Nāths are credited with a variety of supernatural powers, notably that ofexorcism.

In this kaliyuga (see→ cosmic cycles), all religiousinstitutions in India are thought to be in a state ofdecline. But many Nāth castes are thriving, hav-ing raised their status through Sanskritization,and while there are several Nāth monasteries thathave seen better days, new ones continue to beestablished, and others are adapting to the con-

stantly evolving Indian religious landscape andflourishing as a result. A case in point is theGorakhnāth Temple in Gorakhpur, which has a vast and well-maintained campus and whose recentheads have been influential political leaders.

Secondary Literature on the NāthSampradāya

e first explication of the religious practices ofthe Nāths was by S. Dasgupta (1946). is was



19/20

19

expanded upon by M. Eliade (1958). H. Divivedi,drawing on a broad range of textual sources andethnography, wrote a thorough history of theSampradāya and its practices (1996). D.G. White

(1996) surveyed the place of alchemy in Nāthpractice. C. Kiss (2009) has given a detailed analy-sis of the doctrines associated with Matsyendra.

e first comprehensive ethnography of theNāths was by G.W. Briggs (1938). G. Unbescheidgave a more nuanced and localized account ofthe Nāths in Nepal (1980). A. Gold and D. Goldhave produced a number of studies of Nāth house-holders in Rajasthan. Over the last 25 years,V. Bouillier has produced a wealth of ethnogra-phy on Nāth householders and ascetics in Nepal,Haryana, Rajasthan, and Karnataka, and she givesthe first coherent overview of the Sampradāya inher landmark 2008 monograph, which revealsmany key features of the Nāths hitherto notreported, in particular the Kadri pilgrimage.

Bibliography

* Ādeśapadavyākhyā, ms. 1285(B) at the MaharajaMansingh Pustak Prakash, Jodhpur, n.d.

Badathval, P.D., ed., Gorakhbān ị̄ , Allahabad, 1960.Badger, G.P., e Travels of Ludovico di Varthema in Egypt,

Syria, Arabia Deserta and Arabia Felix, in Persia, India

and Ethiopia, A.D. 1503 to 1508, London, 1863.Bagchi, P.C., ed., “Kaulajñānanirn ạya,” in: idem, Kaulaj-

ñānanirn ạya and Some Minor Texts of the School ofMatsyendranātha, CSS 3, Calcutta, 1934.

Bandyopadhyay, P.K., Nātha Cult and Mahānād: A Studyin Syncretism, Delhi, 1992.

Bhatt, P.G., Studies in Tul ụva History and Culture, Manipal,1975.

Birch, J., “Amanaskayoga,” BA thesis, University of Sydney,2006.

Bouillier, V., “e Pilgrimage to Kadri Monastery (Manga-lore, Karnataka): A Nāth Yogī Peformance,” in: H.R.M.Pauwels, ed., Patronage and Popularisation, Pilgrimageand Procession: Channels of Transcultural Translation

and Transmission in Early Modern South Asia: Papersin Honour of Monika Horstmann, StOR 58, Wiesbaden,2009, 135–146.

Bouillier, V., Itinérance et vie monastique: Les ascètes NāthYogīs en Inde contemporaine, Paris, 2008.

Bouillier, V., “e King and His Yogī: Prithivi Nārāyan ̣Śāh, Bhagavantanāth and the Unification of Nepal inthe Eighteenth Century,” in: J.P. Neelsen, ed., Gender,Caste and Power in South Asia: Social Status and Mobil-ity in a Transitional Society , Delhi, 1991, 3–23.

Bouillier, V., “Des Prêtres du Pouvoir: Les Yogī et la Fonc-tion Royale,” Purus ạ̄rtha 12, 1989, 193–213.

Bouillier, V., “La caste sectaire des Kānphat ạ̄ Jogī dans leroyaume du Népal: L’exemple de Gorkhā,” BEFEO 75,1986, 125–168.

Bouillier, V., & D.-S. Khan, “H ạ̄jji Ratan or Bābā Ratan’sMultiple Identities,” JIP 37, 2009, 559–595.

Briggs, G.W., Gorakhnāth and the Kānphat ạ Yogīs, Delhi,1938.

Callewaert, W.M., & B. op de Beeck, Devotional Hindī Lit-erature: A Critical Edition of the Pañc-Vān ị̄ or Five Worksof Dādū, Kabīr, Nāmdev, Rāidās, Hardās with the HindīSongs of Gorakhnāth and Sundardās, and a CompleteWord-Index , 2 vols., New Delhi, 1991.

*Candrāvalokana, ms. D 4345 at the Government OrientalManuscripts Library, Chennai, n.d.

Dasgupta, S., Obscure Religious Cults, Calcutta, 1946, ³1976.Deshpande, M.N., e Caves of Panhāle-Kāji (Ancient

Pranālaka), New Delhi, 1986.Diamond, D., “By the Grace of Jālandranāth: Politics and

Painting in Jodhpur,” in: R. Linrothe, ed., Holy Madness:

Portraits of Tantric Siddhas, New York, 2006, 144–163.Digby, S., “Before Timur Came: Provincialization of the

Delhi Sultanate through the Fourteenth Century,” JESHO 47/3, 2004, 298–356.

Digby, S., “Encounters with Jogīs in Indian S ụ̄fī hagiogra-phy,” unpubl. paper, University of London, 1970.

Dvivedi, H., Nāth Sampradāy , Ilahabad, 1996.Dvivedi, H., Nāth Siddhom ̣ Kī Bāniyām ̣, Varanasi, 1978.Eaton, R.M., e Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier

(1204–1760), Berkeley, 1993.Eliade, M., Yoga: Immortality and Freedom, Princeton,

1958, repr. 1973.Ernst, C.W., “Accounts of Yogis in Arabic and Persian His-

torical and Travel Texts,” JSAI 33, 2007, 409–426.

Ernst, C.W., “Situating Sufism and Yoga,” JRAS 3/15, 2005,15–43.

Gharote, M.L., & G.K. Pai, eds., Siddhasiddhāntapaddhati ,Lonavla, 2005.

Gold, A.G., A Carnival of Parting: e Tales of King Bharthariand King Gopi Chand as Sung and Told by Madhu Nati-sar Nath of Ghatiyali, Rajasthan, Berkeley, 1992.

Gold, D., “Kabīr’s Secrets for Householders: Truths andRumours among Rajasthani Nāths,” in: M. Horstmann,ed., Images of Kabir , Delhi, 2002, 143–156.

*Goraks ạśataka, ms. R 7874 at the Government OrientalManuscripts Library, Chennai, n.d.

Goswamy, B.N., & J.S. Grewal

Documents

The Nath Sampradaya