The Nātha sampradāya and haṭha yoga
नाथ सम्प्रदाय
Also written: nath sampradaya · gorakhnath · hatha yoga origin · siddha tradition · matsyendranath · नाथ
The Nāthas are a Śaiva order, not a departure from the tradition — but they departed decisively from Vedic ritualism, and what they built has travelled further than almost anything else in the corpus.
The Nātha claim in one sentence, from the tradition's own root text: the body is not the obstacle to liberation but the only available instrument for it.
हठविद्या परं गोप्या योगिना सिद्धिमिच्छता। भवेद्वीर्यवती गुप्ता निर्वीर्या तु प्रकाशिता॥
haṭha-vidyā paraṁ gopyā yoginā siddhim icchatā bhaved vīryavatī guptā nirvīryā tu prakāśitā
Haṭha-vidyā should be kept most secret by the yogin desiring attainment; kept secret it is potent, and made public it loses its power.
केवलं राजयोगाय हठविद्योपदिश्यते।
kevalaṁ rāja-yogāya haṭha-vidyopadiśyate
Haṭha-vidyā is taught SOLELY for the sake of rāja yoga.
The core claim
The body is not the obstacle to liberation; it is the only available instrument for it. Hence kāya-sādhanā — the perfecting of the body — and the whole apparatus of āsana, prāṇāyāma, bandha, mudrā and ṣaṭkarma. The aim is the raising of kuṇḍalinī from the mūlādhāra to the sahasrāra, the union of Śiva and Śakti within the practitioner, and the state of the siddha: liberated, and alive.
The texts
| Text | Content |
|---|---|
| Haṭha Yoga Pradīpikā | Svātmārāma, 15th c. — āsana, prāṇāyāma, mudrā, nāda; states that haṭha exists solely for rāja yoga |
| Gheraṇḍa Saṁhitā | The sevenfold yoga: purification, strengthening, steadying, calming, lightness, perception, isolation |
| Śiva Saṁhitā | Philosophy with practice; the nāḍīs and cakras in detail |
| Goraksha Śataka | Attributed to Gorakhnātha; the concise root text of the tradition |
The Nāthas cut across the boundaries of their time: their lineages included Hindus and Muslims, their teaching was given in vernaculars, and Kabīr, Gorakhnāth's poetic heir in many respects, belongs partly to the same current. Modern postural yoga worldwide descends from this stream — filtered through the twentieth-century teachers of Mysore and beyond.
The tributaries — traditions born from the same ground
Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, the Nātha and Siddha lines, the bhakti sants and the modern reform movements: what…
Buddhism
The Buddha's teaching, the four noble truths and the eightfold path, anātman and dependent origination, the sc…
Jainism
The twenty-four Tīrthaṅkaras, the eternal soul and karma as matter, the five vows, anekāntavāda, and the most …
Sikhism
Guru Nānak and the ten Gurus, Ik Onkar, the Guru Granth Sahib as living scripture, the three pillars of practi…
The bhakti movement and the sants
A thousand years of reform from inside: the Ālvārs and Nāyanmārs, Basavaṇṇa, Kabīr, Ravidās, Mīrā, Nāmdev, Tuk…
Modern movements and teachers
Brahmo Samaj, Arya Samaj, Ramakrishna Mission, and the teachers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries who …
Last revised 2026-08-16. Corrections are welcome — see how this site is written.