Gorakhnath and the Kanphata Yogis c7.80

c7.80

In Bombay¹ the Yogīs, also called Nāthas, have two divisions; the Gujarāt Jogīs, who are ascetics; and the Marāṭha Jogīs, including Karṇāṭaka and Kanāra Jogīs, who are both regular and secular. The secular groups are husbandmen and labourers. Some breed buffaloes and dogs, while others make and sell black stone vessels. The Marāṭhas have twelve endogamous divisions, Balgār, Berak, Bhorpi, Bombāri, Dawarjī, Jogār, Ker, Kindri, Kurub, Mendār and Murād. These twelve clans are named each after one of the twelve orders said to have been founded by Gorakhnāth, and no marriages between members of the sub-castes are permitted. Widow marriage is allowed. Polygamy is practised. They bury their dead, mourning for twelve days; otherwise they do not differ much in customs from those of the surrounding cultivating castes. They eat goats, sheep, hares, deer, wild pig and fowls and use spirituous liquors, smoke gāñja and eat opium. Boys are initiated at the age of twelve years. They are a wandering class, who carry their huts, made of matting set on bamboo poles, and goods from camp to camp on ponies and buffaloes. The men dress in ochre-coloured clothes, wear large, thick ear-rings of ivory, clay, bone, or fish-scale in the lobes of their ears and use rosaries of rudrākṣa beads. Their women wear petticoats and bodices and braid their hair, allowing it to hang down their back. Their favourite song is the legend of Gopicand.² Their chief gods are Gorakhnāth and Matsyendranāth. They practise sorcery and witchcraft.