In the 1990s, Judith Butler helped launch Queer Studies as an academic field. Her masterwork Gender Trouble not only challenged the mainstream understanding of sex, gender and sexuality, but showed that even the feminist thinkers at the time were keeping themselves trapped in an orthodox notion of gender.

Butler challenged orthodoxy. This is not only meant in the sense of taking on entrenched received views, but in the deeper sense in which the contemporary Jewish movement of orthopraxy is taking on Jewish orthodoxy. The word orthodoxy means correct belief and orthopraxy means correct action. Like Jewish orthopraxy writers such as Jeffrey Radon and Sherwin Wine who argue that Judaism is not a set of beliefs one must hold but rather to be Jewish is to engage in certain ways of acting, Butler argues that gender is not some culturally imprinted way of thinking that comes from being socialized as a man or woman but rather that gender “is a doing,” a set of prescribed behaviors within political structure which pre-determines the boundaries of allowable and meaningful acts. Just like the Jewish orthorpraxy writers, Butler takes what you do to determine what you are.

Butler is a secular Jewish writer, but she had a religious upbringing, albeit a contentious one. She went to a Jewish day school, but got into trouble for talking back to the teachers and cutting classes.

Peter Singer may be the most influential philosopher of the twentieth century in terms of cultural impact beyond the academy. His book Animal Liberation combined philosophical argumentation with muckraking reporting that launched the animal rights movement. Changes in commercial and scientific testing, the mainstreaming of vegetarianism, and reductions in factory farm ing cruelty coupled with the rise of free-range farming are all direct results of his philosophical work over four decades.

Singer is Australian, but his family was originally Austrian.

As the grandchild of victims of the Shoah, Singer became deeply concerned with the wellbeing of the vulnerable. As one of the most well-known ethicists of the twentieth century, he has been thoroughly committed to utilitarianism, a moral system that contends that moral rightness and wrongness is a result of the sum total of good and bad consequences, of pain and pleasure, generated by deliberate human actions. Every time we act, we change the world. Our actions have effects. Some of the effects are good and some are bad. Morality, through the principle of utility, demands that we choose our actions to create the best possible world when we democratically consider the wellbeing of everyone equally. No one is less than. Everyone's interests are considered equally.

This approach to ethics comes to us from late Enlightenment figures like Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. They argued that morality is not a matter of sentiment, but of reason. In this way, Singer follows his own grand father who perished in the camps.

There is a terrible, tragic irony in the fact that my grandfather (a classical scholar and a member of Freud's inner circle) spent his whole life trying to understand his fellow human beings, yet seems to have failed to take sufficiently seriously the threat that overwhelmed Vienna's Jewish community and ultimately led to the loss of his own life.

The entry for Jugis/Jogis in Herbert Risley's 1892report on the British government's EthnographicSurvey of Bengal identifies this householdercommunity as “a weaving caste” before turning to thequestion of their origins, which Risley deems“extremely obscure”. Judging that “since thebeginning of the century no fresh facts have beenadded” to the surveys conducted in 1807-1809 byFrancis Buchanan, he repeated the latter'sspeculation that the Jogis “were either thepriesthood of the country during the reign of thedynasty to which Gopí Chandra belonged, or Ṣúdrasdedicated to a religious life, but degraded by thegreat Ṣaiva reformer Ṣankara Áchárya, and thatthey came with the Pál Rájás from Western India”(Risley 1892, 355). This loaded but scattershotstatement contains several themes still fundamentalto discourse on the historical and present socialstanding of the Jogī/Yogī/Nāth community in Bengal:the idea (which is central to this chapter) thatthey were previously priests; the use of Nāthreligious literature (e.g., Gopīcandra songs) toreconstruct the community's history; the notion oftheir having been “degraded” to a low status by anagent of orthodox Hindu reform; links to non-Nāthascetic traditions including the Daśnāmī sampradāya (religiousorder) supposedly founded by Śaṅkarācārya; andassociation with the hybrid-Buddhist culture ofBengal under the Pāla Empire of the eighth toeleventh centuries.

Research on sectarian movements in India can becharacterized as following three approaches: atextualist approach, focusing on the religious textsattributed to the sect or dealing with historicaldocuments that concern the beginning and developmentof the sect, such as genealogies or inscriptions; a“spiritualist” approach, focused on individualnarratives of mystical journeys, spiritual quests,and accomplishments; and a third, moreanthropological approach that studies thefunctioning of the sect, its organizationalspecificities, and its identity, both collective andindividual. These approaches are obviously notmutually exclusive, and the present book attests tothe collaboration between historians, textualspecialists, and anthropologists, and the skillfuluse of their respective methods.

It is difficult to apprehend the present situation ofthe Nāth sampradāyawithout referring to its past. The situation hasevolved over several centuries and, nowadays, newdevelopments contradict the pessimistic assessmentsI once had for the future of Nāth monasticinstitutions and the Nāth religious tradition moregenerally (Bouillier 1997, 229). However, theproblem for the sampradāya remains how to maintain abalance between, on the one hand, the demands of themodern world, with the changes that implies, and onthe other hand, fidelity to perennial values, thepreservation of age-old traditions, and thetransmission of specific religious identity. Thepresent authors’ focus gives due recognition to thisdouble requirement: exploring the “powers of theNāth Yogīs” refers both to the traditional image ofthe thaumaturgic Yogī, so widespread since thepremodern period, and to the very contemporary formof the powerful guru.

Hagiographical representations of Yogīs have oftenstressed the theme of power as central to thecharisma of a particular guru. Often depicted asenabling the rise and fall of locale potentatesthrough their blessing or curse, Nāth Yogīs featureprominently in stories that depict the tensionbetween renunciation and lay life, ascetic potencyand worldly power, magic and politics. In Nepal,discourses on Yogī Naraharināth (1915-2003)represent a contemporary embodiment of thehagiographical tradition, presenting him as anexceptional guru of great achievement. But if muchNāth lore had focused on stressing the elements thatposition a Yogī abovemundane matters, centering his charisma around thepivot of renunciation, Naraharināth's devoteesconstrue their guru’ religious career as very muchin the midst of the concerns of twentieth-centuryNepal, highlighting those features, such as hisscholarship and his nationalist commitment, thatspeak of his involvement in worldly affairs. YogīNaraharināth is discussed therefore not only as ayogī, but also as apaṇḍit and as araṣṭra bhakta– thetension between mundane and ascetic power beingmediated by the notion of the karma-yogī.

Ima's poster

For the contemporary visitor of his āśram, the firstacquaintance with Yogī Naraharināth is mediated by abig poster that features his picture along with acondensed summary of his work, making sense of hiscultural significance through a list ofachievements.

The publication of this volume has faced varioushardships. Initially, our intention was to publishit in India but, to our great surprise, the localpublishing houses were not so willing to deal withthe topic of Nāth and power, fearing possiblepolitical consequences. After the initial shock atthe feeling of being censored even before presentingthe manuscript, we eventually realized theseriousness of the problems faced today by somebrave Indian publishing houses when they encourageprojects that do not suit certain political wings.They have our full support. When we luckily obtainedthe support of Amsterdam University Press, we had toface the coronavirus pandemic, which brought with itgreat stress and uncertainty. It was a long journey,and we would like to thank all of our authors fortheir patience and for having made this journey withus.

Contemporary Nāth Yogīs are heirs to a long historythat, gradually, consolidated different asceticbranches into an institutionalized religious order(sampradāya), anddifferent groups into castes of householders.

The Nāth sampradāyatraces its origins to the founding figure ofGorakhnāth, a twelfth century Yogī around which muchhagiographical material accrued over the centuries,creating therefore, an exceptional stratification ofstories and legends that enriches, but alsoconfuses, our understanding of its historicaldevelopment. What seems clear, nonetheless, is thatfor centuries Nāth Yogīs (or those ascetics whowould go on to be labeled as such) have beenassociated with practices especially connected tothe obtainment of powers (siddhis) and of immortality. They werealso known as the “perfected” ones (siddhas), alchemists andpractitioners of a yoga (haṭhayoga) said to transform the body into a“diamond body” (vajradeha), eternal and immortal.

This reputation for supernatural feats made themoptimal gurus for those who wished to channel theirmagical skills to worldly ends. Nāth Yogīs, in fact,often played a prominent role in politicalvicissitudes, typically with a ministerial role aspreceptors and advisors of sympathetic kings,acquiring political influence over state andregional politics.

It is against this backdrop that the relationshipbetween Nāth gurus and political powers, andhouseholder Yogīs and social hierarchy, wasestablished but also reinterpreted over thecenturies.

Looking at the past and the present of the Nāth Yogīs,in this volume we decided to focus on the dimensionof power, both in its spiritual and its worldlyaspects, and explore the ways in which asceticnotions of power were and are used to promotepolitical, religious, or social changes. In order todo that, we place the transformations of the sampradāya in the largercontext of ideological shifts, new forms ofparticipation in the public/political sphere, newarticulations of religious belonging, newconceptions of caste mobility and, looking at thepresent day, the emergence of Hindu nationalism.

The contributions of this volume, therefore, highlightmoments of selfreinterpretation that are produced bythe sampradāya'sinteraction with different social milieus, and thatare expedient for enabling the order to adjust tonew requirements. In fact, it is not unusual forreligious leaders to adapt their traditions underthe influence of the historical period and thesocial and religious contexts in which theylive.

In revisiting what is known about the early history ofthe Nāth Yogīs in Nepal and contrasting what isknown about them from the time of the Malla kings(1200-1768/69) with the information we have from theperiod of Śāh and Rāṇā rule (1768-1950), the presentchapter will attempt to shed light on the different“shades” of power and power relations evidencedamong Nepalese Yogīs. In the first part, based on are-reading of the available epigraphic sources, itwill be shown that in the Kathmandu Valley the closelinkage between the Yogīs and the king, which isclearly attested for later periods and has beenrepeatedly projected by scholars onto the moreremote past, only came into existence slowly. Thesecond part of the chapter deals with the specialrelation of the Śāh kings from Gorkha to theirtutelary deity Gorakṣanāth, and briefly describesthe stellar career of Siddha Bhagavantanāth, a Yogīfrom West Nepal, who has already been studied in thepioneering works of Günter Unbescheid (1980) andVéronique Bouillier (1991a and b). Finally, thechapter discusses new pertinent documents, some yetunpublished, thus providing updated informationabout the development of Bhagavantanāth's lineage,including a demonstration that the support andprivileges granted by the temporal powers to thislineage for more than a century were notopen-ended.

Since the end of the nineteenth century, yoga has beenused by Indian gurus as a tool for highlightingIndia's philosophical and spiritual relevance in theworld. This trend has become a more explicitpolitical strategy in the last few years, sinceModi's government, capitalizing on the widespreaddiffusion of yoga practices in the world, decided toinvest in yoga as a form of soft power.

Considering the fact that today yoga attractsindividuals of all ages and social backgrounds, itcomes as no surprise that the order traditionallyassociated with it, the Nāth sampradāya, would try to fit into thisyogascape. This would mark an historicaldiscontinuity, as the practice of haṭha yoga,according to several scholars (see below), has beenabsent from Nāth practice for quite some time.

In this chapter I will briefly analyze the historicalrelationship of haṭha yoga and the Nāth sampradāya and then, usingethnographic data, evaluate the role that today thisform of yoga has among Nāths. To follow, after ashort theoretical overview on the role of yoga as asymbol of cultural nationalism and as aninternational practice, I will focus on two examplesof what I call the “re-appropriation” of haṭha yoga:the textually prolific work of Yogī Vilāsnāth, whois also engaged in proselytizing at theinternational level, and the more local activitiesof the Gorakhnāth temple of Gorakhpur organized byYogī Śivanāth, through a description of the yogaśivir (yoga camp)held in Gorakhpur on the occasion of the 2018International Day of Yoga.

One can easily imagine that the modern politicalimportance of the Nāth sampradāya (community) in Gorakhpur, inpresent-day Uttar Pradesh, India, would haveastounded many people in early modern Hindustan.Settled in the Terai of the Himalayas, the NāthYogīs at Gorakhpur had little influence outside oftheir region prior to the twentieth century. Yettoday Gorakhpur is home to the most significanttheocratic center for the contemporary sampradāya and the nucleusof this current power is the Gorakhnāth maṭh (temple complex) andthe mahan s(monastics) who lead it. Gorakhpur, named incommemoratation of the preceptor of the Nāth Yogīs,Guru Gorakhnāth – an ascetic who taughttranscendence over worldly concerns, sectariandivisions, and even nature itself – is today farmore recognized for Hindu fundamentalism than forthe yogic sādhana(bodily discipline) or siddhis (supernatural powers)traditionally associated with this order. While theimmense political stature associated with the modernmaṭh may appearunprecedented to some observers, the relationshipbetween Nāth Yogīs and temporal power is not.Gorakhpur's Gorakhnāth maṭh displays only a novel variation ofthe Nāth Yogīs longstanding pursuit of both divineand worldly powers. As twentieth- andtwenty-first-century leaders of the maṭh have employed modifiedtechniques to garner political power in modernIndia, they also continue to invoke the legendarysiddhi s that havelong been associated with the sampradāya.

If one were to scrutinize yogic literature, especiallythat associated with haṭha yoga, it would quicklybecome apparent that the acquisition and developmentof powers is an important motif, if not utterlyrequisite for the yogic quest. Haṭha yoga oftenimplies some sort of ascetic practice that canproduce various results. The main objective inseveral haṭha texts is to master the vital breath soas to gain immunity and immortality, which impliesabsolute perfection. Thus, a driving, underlyingmotif in yogic idiom relies on the material andsymbolical imaginings of power, perfection, andsuccess, all of which can be rendered by theSanskrit word siddhi.Even though Carl Olson (2015, 4) identifies threebig D's in asceticism (detachment, denial,discipline), it seems that in various contexts andexamples yogic power does not necessarily have toimply all three, although discipline is allegedlyone big D that conditions yogic success.

This chapter aims to comprehensively address thequestion of power in the yogī milieu of the Nāthsampradāya, with theintention of probing into the material consequencesof the symbolical imaginings of power, perfection,and success. Its starting point is to see siddhi not as an asceticgoal that only takes place in ontological and/orspiritual contexts, but one that transcends andincorporates other realms of human activity.

At first sight, the very existence of a Hindu castecalled Jugi may be surprising. The term jugi is a vernacular form ofthe Sanskrit word yogī, and as every student of Indianreligious history knows, yogīs are supposed to becelibate ascetics who do not lead a regular familylife; thus, they do not form a caste. Indeed,classical Sanskrit literature of various genresoffers a clear-cut distinction between a marriedhouseholder (gr̥hastha) on one hand and an asceticrenouncer (saṃnyāsī,yogī, sādhu, etc.) on the other.According to Patanjali, the greatest authority onyoga in ancient India, an ascetic life, includingstrict celibacy, is a prerequisite for yogapractice. This traditional view of a yogī wasreinforced in the twentieth century, when modernIndian yoga gurus highlighted the importance ofascetic values for success in the practice of yoga.In fact, they even gained their authority from thefact that they – contrary to their non-celibatestudents – fulfilled the classical ideal of anascetic yogī. Thus, today even Westerners know thata genuine yogī should be an ascetic.

How, then, can a caste of Yogīs exist? The answer liesin the nature of the sources that present thehouseholder and the ascetic as opposites. TheseSanskrit texts are normative works prescribing theideal form of society and religious life. Reality,however, has always – quite naturally – differedfrom the prescribed norms.

The ritual landscape in Gogameri, a rural pilgrimagesite in Rajasthan, India, has changed dramaticallysince the turn of the twenty-first century. Many ofthe recent construction projects are clusteredaround one of the two ritual sites that have longdrawn religiously diverse pilgrims there: themausoleum (meṛī;literally, “mound”) of Gogājī, an oral-epic hero andsaintly deity whom many people now characterize asbearing relationships to both Hinduism and Islam.Religio-charitable trusts build and operate pilgrimhostels on land endowed to Gogājī's tomb, which ismanaged by the Rajasthan state government'sDepartment of Devasthan (royal temple endowments).One religio-charitable association that providesinfrastructure throughout the village is theGorakhtila Dhuna Trust, which also serves as thetemple board of Gogameri's other celebrated ritualsite: Gorakhtila, the “private” (nijī) monastic temple ofGorakhnāth, who is here remembered as Gogājī'sdivine guru. The Dhuna Trust is directed byGorakhtila's Abbot (Mahant), Balyogī Rupnāth, who was on abuilding spree when I knew him between 2008 and2013. By 2013, the trust had constructed schoolbuildings, a bus stop, toilet and bathing complexes,and a cow haven. All of these were built on publicland as part of a government-coordinated, buttrust-led effort to develop Gogameri into aworld-renowned destination for devout tourists. Totrustees, these infrastructural projects constitutedofferings of sevā(religio-charitable “service”) toGogājī, Gorakhnāth, and their devotees.