Gorakhnath and the Kanphata Yogis c8.22

c8.22

Another famous disciple of Bhartṛhari was Ratannāth of Peshāwar. Beyond the frontier, and in Peshāwar, these followers of Ratannāth do not wear the mudrā. To account for this it is reported that once at Ṭilla when Ratannāth was taken to task for not having ear-rings he opened his breast and showed them in his heart. Once his rings were taken away from him as a punishment for some offence, and he showed them in his mouth. Musalmāns revere him. Ratannāth is famous for having created a boy out of the dirt of his body. This boy was afterwards known as Kāyanāth, and as Qaim ud Dīn. When Kāyanāth died, both Musalmāns and Hindus claimed his body; but it disappeared, only the clothes remaining. Hindus built a samādh for him, and Musalmāns a tomb. Another group of Yogīs related to Ratannāth is the Mekhla Dhārī. In Ambāla they wear a tarāgī. In Nābha there are secular Yogīs who trace their origin to Ratannāth. They belong to the Puniya gotra (a Jāṭ gotra). The founder of this group of householders was Māināth. After he had become a Yogī, the Jāṭs compelled him to marry a girl of the juggler Yogīs. The Bharat in Dera Gazi Khan belong to this division.