The Nandinatha Sampradaya traces its beginning to at least 200 BCE. Its founder and first known spiritual preceptor was Maharishi Nandinatha. Nandinatha is said to have initiated eight disciples (Sanatkumar, Sanakar, Sanadanar, Sananthanar, Shivayogamuni, Patanjali, Vyaghrapada, and Thirumular), and sent them to various places to spread the teachings of  Shaiva Siddhanta. Though some of these disciples were sent as far as China to spread the Shaiva Siddhanta philosophy of their Guru, the work of two is especially important.

Patanjali is known as the author of the Yoga Sutras, in which he codified the practice and philosophy of Yoga. This crucial text is one of the most widely quoted and respected texts on the practice of Yoga. Its translations are studied today in Yoga Centers throughout the world. Most of the mystical, Sanskrit vocabulary of Yoga teachings are first codified in this text. The Ashtanga Yoga (eight-limbed) process of Yoga comes from this text. The text contains a spiritual blueprint for controlling body and mind by degrees, detaching consciousness from its objects, and attaining Samadhi, the realisation of the Divine source.

Thirumular authored the Thirumantiram, which is a well-known and revered Tamil scripture. The Tirumantiram is still chanted in Tamil Nadu. It covers a wide variety of topics and illuminates much of the esoteric mystical insight of this Sampradaya. It illustrates the lifestyle and moral conduct advocated by this tradition. It provides much insight into the mystical meditations and tantras (techniques) valued by the Nandinatha Sampradaya. It places great emphasis on the repetition of the panchakshara (or five-lettered) mantra: Om Namah Shivaya.

Spiritual lineage: Maharishi Nandinath → Tirumular → → → Nameless Rishi from Himalayas → Kadaitswami → Chellappaswami → Siva Yogaswami → Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami →Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami

The teachings of the Nandinatha Sampradaya, value highly the necessity of a living preceptor to carry the unseen, energetic essence of these teachings to devotees. The Nandinatha Sampradaya is a Siddha Yoga Tradition (‘Siddha’ means attainment literally), and its Gurus have often demonstrated great mystical abilities and wisdom. It is said that these teachers have realised their oneness with the Supreme God (they call ‘Shiva’) and have merged completely with this Divine source of all. With such realisation, it is said, comes limitless bliss and direct command of every power in the universe. There are many accounts of miraculous powers demonstrated by the Teachers of this lineage. It is taught that the aid of such a highly realised Siddha can greatly quicken spiritual practice. Some even say that without the diksha (initiation) of such teachers, the human instincts will always fail to lead to this highest Realisation.

The Nandinatha Sampradaya is maintained today by several groups stemming from Maharishi Nandinatha’s eight disciples. The Kailasa Parampara is based out of Kauai, Hawaii, the U.S.A., where a monastery and mandir (temple) is maintained. The Sannyasis (Monks) of this order continue to spread the teachings of this Sampradaya through the Himalayan Academy and the ‘Hinduism Today’ magazine.  Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami is the living preceptor or the 163rd Guru Mahasannidhanam of the Kailasa Parampara of the Nandinatha Sampradaya.

The Himalayan Hindus of two thousand years ago lived a rustic life, close to the land, close to their spiritual roots, close to one another, on whom they depended for sustenance. Hamlets and ashrams were always built near a river, freshwater being central to survival. Their thatched cottages took many shapes, mostly round and rectangular, engineered with four or six posts inside, over which a sheet of woven branches, grasses, and leaves was layered. This pastoral life offered many opportunities for gatherings, especially in the ashrams, and the Himalayan Hindu holy men loved nothing more than to hold philosophical discourse and debates, often under the wide canopy of a ficus tree. Everyone would sit on the ground for these meetings. There were no books. Learning in those days was conveyed orally and committed to memory by the students. The spiritual elders had small mat-seats, or wooden tables called pitha, some six inches high, on which they would sit to guide the others and impart instructions to students of different ages. These rishis were often married men, not sannyasins. Some sannyasins also had disciples living with them, while others engaged in their spiritual meditation and other practices in strict seclusion.

In this Himalayan remote, there lived a great yogi known as Maharishi Nandinatha, a rare and illumined soul whose inner eye was opened to the perfection of the universe, a knower of Shiva, of the Self God within. He himself derived from a long line of Satgurus, whose names and biographies are lost, and thus he is regarded as the first known preceptor of the lineage known today as the Nandinatha Sampradaya, the Agamic tradition that Robert Hansen had discovered in Ceylon.

Nandinatha had for his direct disciples the four sages—Sanaka, Sanantana, Sanatana, and Sanatkumara—all bearing the title of Nandi. Besides them were Sivayoga Muni, Patanjali, Vyaghrapada and Tirumular (also known as Sundaranatha). All eight were the spiritual leaders of one of the initial Agamic schools and were known as Nathas. Of them, the first four received Lord Siva’s special grace and were commanded by Him to disperse themselves in the four directions, carrying the message of the Agamas. Once at their appointed destinations, they practiced intense yoga in the Agamic way—through sun and rain, hail and storm—and in time ascended to celestial status.

The yogis around Maharishi Nandinatha were well versed in the Shiva Sutras, whose aphorisms were regarded as the voice of Siva Himself—a puzzling, mathematically sophisticated set of fourteen couplets that seem to be about the Sanskrit alphabet, but on deeper reflection are a key to understanding the composition of the cosmos, showing how this language creates a mystical connection to the Divine from its very roots. From Kashmir Saivism to Shaiva Siddhanta, the early tantric traditions share a love of the Shiva Sutras, those obscure, arcane, mysterious verses that yogis study even in the 21st century to delve into the mystical apprehension of the universes, gross and subtle.

These fourteen sutras—revealed to Panini, who wrote them down as a kind of yogic science notebook for its time—emanated from the drum held in the raised right hand of Lord Shiva Nataraja. This science of sound and words remained a secret to most, for only the illumined could comprehend it, being unspoken knowledge directly from the Supreme Lord and beyond the reach of the ordinary mind.

Sages like Sanaka, Sanatana, Sanatkumara, Patanjali, and others were able to hear the transcendental sounds of Siva’s drum but could not grasp the inner, core meaning of the aphorisms. Legend says they approached Maharishi Nandinatha seeking an explanation. Moved by the sincerity of their search for this rare knowledge, the Satguru proceeded to elucidate the essence of the sutras. He offered twenty-seven verses, which are the only written teachings of this primal preceptor that have survived the tides of time, and thus form the oldest scriptural text from this Shaiva Siddhanta lineage. Terse and wise, it is known as the Nandikeshvara Kashika. Kashika means ‘the illuminator.’

It is said that Sri Nandikeshvara, as Maharishi Nandinatha is also known, accomplished the feat of explaining the inexplicable due to two things: his profound God Realisations, which gave him a oneness with Shiva within, and the completion of a difficult, some would say impossible, austerity, that of reciting the epic chant Sri Rudram ten million times.