Joining the Clubs: Continuities between Pāśupata and Nāth Asceticism

Abstract

This article adduces textual, epigraphic, and iconographic evidence to identify vestiges of the Pāśupata ascetic tradition in Nāth Yogī lineages. The Pampāmāhātmya reveals links between Pāśupata and Nāth teachings on yoga. A combination of all three varieties of sources identifies forerunners of the Nāth Yogī Dhaj Panth subdivision within the Pāśupatas. Further, Nāth iconography from its beginnings to the early modern period depicts yogis carrying clubs similar to those seen in material representations of the Pāśupata teacher Lakulīśa. Together this evidence indicates that the Pāśupatas were among the various tantric traditions that survived in modified forms in lineages of the Nāth Yogīs.

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