The first earthly guru of the Nāths, Matsyendra, is said to have brought the Kaula tantric doctrine (→ Tantra) to the world (Sanderson, 1988, 681). An important early (c. 10th-cent.) text attributed to him, the Kaulajñānanirnaya, teaches Kaula doctrines. The Matsyendrasamhitā, a 13th-century compendium of teachings on yoga and ritual attributed to him, describes its doctrine as śāmbhava. This South Indian variant of Śaivism derives from the eastern and western Kaula streams, but it also marks a moment in the history of yoga when yoga started to detach itself from sectarian moorings (Kiss, 2009, 97).
This necessitated the elimination of sect markers such as deities, mantras, and metaphysics. Subsequent Nāth works on yoga continue this trend of antisectarianism, and it is not until the approximately 18th-century Siddhasiddhāntapaddhati, which itself marks a moment when the Nāth Sampradāya was seeking to establish a solid sectarian identity, that a specifically Nāth metaphysics is expounded. The Siddhasiddhāntapaddhati teaches the creation of the world from → brahman, through → śakti and the elements (→ mahābhūtas), to the beginnings of human life. It includes descriptions of the components of the subtle body and how they can be used in yogic practice, together with microcosmic and macrocosmic parallels between the body and the universe.
This necessitated the elimination of sect markers such as deities, mantras, and metaphysics. Subsequent Nāth works on yoga continue this trend of antisectarianism, and it is not until the approximately 18th-century Siddhasiddhāntapaddhati, which itself marks a moment when the Nāth Sampradāya was seeking to establish a solid sectarian identity, that a specifically Nāth metaphysics is expounded. The Siddhasiddhāntapaddhati teaches the creation of the world from → brahman, through → śakti and the elements (→ mahābhūtas), to the beginnings of human life. It includes descriptions of the components of the subtle body and how they can be used in yogic practice, together with microcosmic and macrocosmic parallels between the body and the universe.
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