THE KANIPA NATH

The great Siddha yogi Kanipa was one of most remarkable personalities amongst the Māhasiddhas of the Tantrik traditions of India and Tibet. In different stories he appearing under various names, as Kṛṣṇācārya, Kṛṣṇāpāda, Kānhupāda, Kānphā, Kaṇha-pa, Kāṇha, ācārya Caryāpa, Kaniphanāth, Kānarī-nāth?, Kānupā and more. It is seems as the established historical fact that he was the chief disciple of the Natha Siddha Jalandhar Nath, and live at the same period of time with the Guru Goraksh Nath, whom he have met few times. He appeared as the remarkable and powerful yogi in the Indian Śaiva tradition of the Nātha yogis and in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition of the Vajrayana Māhasiddhas. The both traditions agree that he was prominent Siddha yogi and at the same time paṇḍita (highly learned man), and had lot of disciples.

Legends: There exist three principal legends about him considerably different from each other, one which was circulating as oral tradition amongst the Nātha Yogis and in the form of folklore tales, and second was presented in the book Caturaśīti-siddha-pravṛitti amongst the stories of eighty-four Mahasiddhas under number 17. The third variation of his biography was presented by Lama Taranatha in two of his books ‘The Seven Instruction Lineages’ and ‘The Live of Kṛṣṇācārya/Kāṇha’. 

In the natha version of his story he is shown as being very powerful, but arrogant Nātha Yogi, who eventually enters into the conflict with Goraksh Nath and afterwards tries to challenge him few times, but always loosing contest. There exist endless interpretations of this legend, varying in details in bigger or lesser degree, but having the same main line of narration. 

In the second story Kānupā has shown as the Vajrayana Siddha, the disciple of Jalandhari-pa, who initiated him into Hevajra mandala sadhana. After practicing it, he achieving extraordinary yogic powers and becomes intoxicated by them, and likes to demonstrate them everywhere indiscriminately. At the end he punished for his arrogance by some sorcery girl, whose fatal curse causing him to die. There is no any mention of Guru Goraksh Nath in the second tale. Both these stories are different from each other, but have some parallel places in them, and it seems that author of one of them was aware of existence of the other story, but it difficult so say which of them preceded other.