________________
OF THE HINDUS.
213
The principal mode in which the Yoga takes a popular shape in Upper India is probably of comparatively recent origin. This is the sect of Kanphátá Jogis, who acknowledge as their founder a teacher named GORAKHNÁTHI, traces of whom are found in a Gorakhkshetra at Peshawer, mentioned by ABULFAZL, and in the district and town of Gorakhpur, where also exist a temple and religious establishment of his followers. They hold also in veneration a plain near Dwaraká, named Gorakhkhetr, and a cavern or subterraneous passage at Haridwar. The Saiva temples of Nepál, those of Sambunáth, Pasupatináth, and others, belong to the same system, although local legends attached to them have combined in a curious nanner the fictions of the Bauddha with those of the Brahmanical mythology'.
From a Goshthi2, or controversial dialogue, between KABIR and GORAKHNÁTH it would seem that they were personally known to each other, but various texts in the Bijak allude to him as if recently deceased. In either case these two teachers may have been cotemporaries, or nearly so, and the latter therefore flourished in the beginning of the 15th century. According to his followers he was an incarnation of SIVA; but in the controversial tract above named he calls
See Asiatic Researches, Vol. XVI, page 471, and Note. This has been printed in the first volume of Hindee and Hindustani Selections, for the use of the Interpreters of the Bengal Army, compiled by Captain PRICE. The discussion, in the form of a dialogue, occurs page 140.
