Textual and Material Evidence for Links between Vajrayāna and Nāth Yogis in Western India in the 11th to 15th centuries

James Mallinson

Claims of tantric Buddhist origins for the Nāth lineage of yogis are widespread in secondary literature on yoga, but with little evidence to support them. Textual support for this claim has recently been discovered, however, by Dr Péter-Dániel Szántó and Dr James Mallinson in a c.12th century bilingual (Sanskrit—Tibetan) manuscript of the Amṛtasiddhi, the oldest text to teach the methods of

haṭhayoga. In this talk Dr Mallinson will summarise the evidence behind this discovery and attempt to identify where and when the shift from Vajrayāna to Nāth identity may have occurred. His research, drawing on Sanskrit, Tibetan and Telugu textual sources, and art-historical material, has led him to the west coast of India and he will illustrate his talk with photographs from his fieldwork in this region.

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