Navnath Bhaktisar: The Book Read Aloud on Thursdays

Practical, since this is the part people are usually looking for.

What a parayana is

A complete reading of a text, start to finish, within a set period, as a practice.

Not study. The point is not to analyse the book, and a parayana is not paused to look things up. It is a reading undertaken as an offering, with the completeness and the continuity being what makes it one.

The common forms

Saptaha: seven days, which is the usual one, with the forty chapters divided across the days.

Ekahik: the whole thing in a single day, which is long and is done.

A chapter a day: the slow version, completing in forty days, which is what many people actually do.

When

Thursday is the day associated with it, being guruvar, the day of the teacher, and Nath and Datta observance both attach to it.

And a saptaha is usually begun so that the completion falls on a Thursday, or on a day the family keeps.

How it is done in practice

In a household that does this, the shape is roughly:

• Bathe before reading, and read in a clean place
• A lamp, lit for the duration of each day's reading
• A picture or image of the Naths, of Dattatreya, or of the family's deity
• Read aloud, which is the traditional form and is the better one for reasons given below
• The same time each day, kept
• Simple food during the week, and many families keep a light or restricted diet
• On completion, an offering, and a meal shared, and often feeding people

And read aloud is worth insisting on

Because of what it does that silent reading does not.

It is slower, so the text cannot be skimmed. It uses the body, so attention has something to hold on to. It can be heard by other people in the house, including people who cannot read, which is how these texts were transmitted for most of their existence.

And an older person reading aloud to a family is the actual traditional form of this practice, and it is worth arranging while there is still somebody who can do it.

The phalashruti, and this app's position on it

Most texts of this kind end with a phalashruti, a statement of the fruits of reading: this chapter gives this benefit, a complete reading gives that, obstacles are removed, illness goes, a childless couple has a child, wealth comes.

And this app is going to be plain.

Read the book. It is free, it is good, and reading something completely with attention is a real practice with real effects on the person doing it.

And do not expect the specific outcomes, and do not organise your life around them.

Three things follow from that:

One. Do not pay anybody to do a parayana for you.

This is a service that is sold, at scale, and it should not be. The practice consists of you reading the book, and a paid reading by a stranger on your behalf is not the practice, and the people selling it know that.

Two. Do not substitute it for treatment.

If somebody is ill, they need a doctor. Read the book as well if you want to. The book is not the treatment and no text in this tradition claims to replace one.

Three. Do not read it for a specific result and then feel that you failed.

Which is where the real harm in phalashruti material lies, and it is not usually noticed: a person reads for an outcome, the outcome does not come, and the conclusion available to them is that they did it wrong.

And that is not true, and it is worth saying before somebody starts.

The rules problem

And this needs a direct paragraph, because it is common and it causes real distress.

Parayana practice attracts rules.

What you may eat, what you may not, whether the reading can be interrupted, what happens if it is, what happens if you lose your place, whether a menstruating woman may read, whether a death in the family stops it, what to do if you miss a day.

And in some households the rules become the practice, and the reading becomes a source of anxiety rather than of anything else, and a person ends up frightened of doing it wrong.

This app's position, plainly:

If you miss a day, continue. If you are interrupted, continue. If you lose your place, find it and continue. Nothing bad happens.

And on menstruation, which comes up constantly: Vandnaa's position throughout is that menstruation is not impurity, that the exclusion of menstruating women from reading, worship and kitchens is a custom rather than a devotional necessity, and that no woman needs to accept it in her own practice.

And if religious practice is producing anxiety rather than relieving it

That is worth taking seriously rather than pushing through.

Scrupulosity, the compulsive fear of having performed a religious act incorrectly, is a recognised pattern, it is common in every religious tradition, it is closely related to obsessive compulsive disorder, and it is treatable.

The signs: repeating an act because it might not have counted; being unable to finish because of doubt about whether an earlier part was correct; distress out of proportion to the error; and the practice taking more and more time to produce less and less peace.

If that is familiar, it is a health matter and not a spiritual failure, and Tele MANAS 14416 is free and available twenty four hours in many Indian languages.

And the tradition's own position is on your side here: every figure in this batch is a Nath, and the Naths are the least ritually anxious tradition in India. They walked, they sang, and they did not fill in forms.

What the Naths contributed, gathered in one place.

One. Hatha yoga.

The system, the texts and the vocabulary. The Hatha Yoga Pradipika, the Gheranda Samhita and the Shiva Samhita all come out of this tradition and all open by saluting its founders.

And the honest note from the Jalandharnath entry stands: the classical system is about breath, the locks and the internal work rather than about postures, and the physical culture the word yoga now names in most of the world is a twentieth century development with its own separate history, which does not make it illegitimate.

Two. An order outside the caste system.

The Naths initiated people the settled order would not.

The Gahininath entry is the clearest case: a child of a family the community had destroyed, refused the thread and every form of participation, was given a lineage by a yogi in a cave who did not ask.

And the whole Varkari tradition comes out of that afternoon.

Three. Traffic between traditions.

The same figures appear in Nath lists, Buddhist Mahasiddha lists, Veerashaiva lists and Nepalese Newar worship, and this batch has documented four instances of it.

Which is evidence about a shared world rather than a dispute about ownership, and the chariot at Patan, pulled by Buddhists and Hindus together for a deity they call by different names, is the clearest surviving demonstration of it.

Four. Alchemy and metallurgy.

Real technical work with real results, and a real hazard in what survives of it, and the Charpatinath entry gives both.

Five. The ballads.

Gopichand and Bhartrihari are sung across north India by hereditary performer communities, and they are among the great oral epics of the subcontinent, and they are disappearing.

And what the Naths did not contribute

An institution that lasted in the way the others in this series did.

There is no Nath equivalent of the Udupi ashta mathas, the Srirangam succession or the Shaiva Siddhanta adheenams, all of which this series has covered and all of which are running today with continuous records.

The Gorakhnath Math at Gorakhpur is substantial and there are Nath akharas and shrines, and the tradition is real and present.

But the Naths were never an organised order for most of their history, which is why the lists of nine do not agree, why the dates are unrecoverable, and why the material survives as ballads and a nineteenth century Marathi compilation rather than as an archive.

And that is not a failure. It is what a tradition of people who walked looks like from the far end.

A daily practice from this batch

• Alakh Niranjan, the Nath call, or Om Namah Shivaya
• Sitting still and breathing normally, which is the practice the whole tradition is built on and which requires no technique, no retention and no supervision
• One chapter of the Navnath Bhaktisar if you read Marathi, or a translation, read aloud
• And the line from the Matsyendranath entry, kept available for anybody who has been asleep at something for a long time, including yourself: jaag Machhindra, Gorakh aaya

The book: the Navnath Bhaktisar, also the Navnath Grantha and Navnath Katha Sar, a Marathi verse work in forty adhyayas collecting the lives of the nine Naths and their disciples, by Malu Narhari, also given as Dhundisut Malu, usually dated around 1800. The figures in it belong to roughly the eighth to thirteenth centuries and the book is from the beginning of the nineteenth, so it is a compilation at a distance of five hundred to a thousand years, organised into continuous narrative by somebody working at the end of that process. It is not a historical source for the Naths and does not present itself as one: it is a devotional narrative work, the miracles are the genre, and it is genuinely good as narrative.

Its place: it sits alongside the Jnaneshwari, the Tukaram and Namdev gathas, the Eknathi Bhagavat and the Gurucharitra in the Marathi religious library, and it and the Gurucharitra are the two read as parayanas, with almost identical practices.

What a parayana is: a complete reading of a text, start to finish, within a set period, as a practice rather than as study. The usual forms are the saptaha over seven days with the chapters divided across them, the ekahik in a single day, and a chapter a day completing in forty. Thursday is the associated day, being guruvar, the day of the teacher. In practice: bathe first, read in a clean place, light a lamp, keep a picture, read aloud, keep the same time each day, keep food simple during the week, and on completion make an offering, share a meal and feed people.

Read aloud: it is slower so the text cannot be skimmed, it uses the body so attention has something to hold, and it can be heard by others in the house including people who cannot read, which is how these texts were transmitted for most of their existence. An older person reading aloud to a family is the actual traditional form, and it is worth arranging while there is still somebody who can do it.

On the phalashruti: read the book, which is free and good and where reading something completely with attention is a real practice with real effects on the reader, and do not expect the specific outcomes or organise your life around them. Three things follow: do not pay anybody to do a parayana for you, since the practice consists of you reading the book and a paid reading by a stranger is not the practice; do not substitute it for treatment, since an ill person needs a doctor and no text in this tradition claims to replace one; and do not read it for a result and then conclude that you failed, which is where the real harm in phalashruti material lies.

On the rules: parayana practice attracts rules about food, interruption, losing your place, menstruation and missed days, and in some households the rules become the practice and the reading becomes a source of anxiety. If you miss a day, continue; if you are interrupted, continue; if you lose your place, find it and continue; nothing bad happens. On menstruation, this app's position throughout is that it is not impurity and no woman needs to accept exclusion in her own practice. And if religious practice is producing anxiety rather than relieving it, scrupulosity is a recognised pattern closely related to obsessive compulsive disorder, it is common in every tradition and it is treatable: Tele MANAS 14416.