ELEMENTS OF NATH IDENTITY

The Name “Nāth” The use of the name “Nāth” (Skt. nātha) to denote an order of human ascetics is relatively recent, dating to approximately the 18th century . Before this time the members of the various ascetic lineages that were to become the Nāth Sampradāya were known as yogīs (as they still are in the name of the modern “Nāth” organization, the above-mentioned Yogi Mahasabha). Householder “Nāths” were also known thus, and it was not until the 20th century that they began to refer to themselves as Nāths, in a bid to elevate their status and escape the pejorative connotations of the name yogī/jogī, which had come to be associated with low-status castes and mendicant orders . This has happened only in Rajasthan; elsewhere householder “Nāths” are still for the most part known as yogīs or jogīs.

The names of some of the early Nāth gurus did sometimes bear the suffix -nātha, but other suff ixes are also found, including -pāda, -pā, -deva, and -āī; very often the early gurus’ names are found without any suffix at all. Meanwhile many humans and gods with no connection with the Nāth Sampradāya have names that bear the suffix -nātha, for example, the Jaina saints Ādinātha, Pārśvanātha, and so on; the 16th-century guru of the → Vallabha Sampradāya, Vitthalnāth; → Krsna as Gopīnāth, the lord of the shepherd girls; and → Visnu as Jagannāth at Puri (see → Orissa). In a modern gazetteer, a group of five Vaisnava → tīrthas spread across India is known as the Pañc Nāth (Tīrthānk, 561). From at least the 10th century (see below), we find groupings of semidivine Nāths, 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 to address a god or an important person.

 Many commentators and scholars have seized upon instances of the word or suffix -nātha as indicative of the existence of a Nāth Sampradāya, but until the 18th century, the word was not used as such. T he hybrid Hindi/Sanskrit term “Nāth siddha,” which is commonly used in secondary literature to denote members of the ascetic Nāth Sampradāya throughout the ages, is not found in premodern literature. It might be supposed that the forerunners of the Nāths were denoted by the name “yogī,” but this term is also ambiguous as it has been used, at least until the modern period, to denote yogapracticing ascetics belonging to a wide range of orders, in particular those of the Daśanāmī samnyāsīs and Rāmānandīs.

 In the absence of nomenclature as a definitive criterion for identifying “Nāths” and in the light of there being no evidence of an organized pan-Indian order of Nāths prior to the beginning of the 17th century, in order to analyze the history of the Nāth Sampradāya during its formative period, the history of the various elements that constitute Nāth identity today will now be examined in turn. At the risk of historical inaccuracy, for the sake of convenience, the forerunners of the members of what is now known as the Nāth Sampradāya are herein usually referred to as “Nāths.”