Siddha · Kaula · Nath · c. 1000 CE
Shri Matsyendranath (also Minanath) is the fisherman-saint who gave the broader Nath Order its shape as a distinct body. Naths were known earlier. He bound three viewpoints into one working stream: Siddha, Kaula, and Nath. Twilight Yoga I is Mahendranath’s telling.
The name marks the fish. One story says he overheard Shiva teaching Parvati from inside a fish. His two chief disciples were Caurangi and Gorakshanath. Gorakshanath outshone him in many later branches, wrote on Laya Yoga, and stands as Adiguru of the largest Nath panth in India.
A second story puts Matsyendranath in a City of Women with their queen as consort. Gorakshanath is said to have gone to pull his guru out of that life and to have turned the accent toward meditation inside a sannyas order. Whether the tale is history or warning, it names the fork: Kaula togetherness on one side, the cave and the cloth on the other. The International Nath Order stands on the Kaula-Nath side as a householder stream. It is not that large panth under another name.
He is still honored in Nepal and in much of North India. For this Order the living link is the Kaula current that also runs through Shri Pagala Baba into Mahendranath. The word Nath names the stream and the INO initiate. This page names the man.