Reading the Lineages
What the tree shows, and the story of each branch.
What is a paramparā?
Paramparā (परम्परा) means "one after another": a chain of teachers, each passing on what they received from their own teacher. Indian traditions value a teaching partly by its unbroken line, and monks still recite their lineage before they teach. The tree on the previous page follows six such chains and the places where they touch.
How to read the tree
Time runs downward. Each box sits at the year the teaching reached that person: their initiation, first meeting with the teacher, founding of an institution, taking office, or (for a text) its composition. Years are estimates where nobody knows. Legendary figures sit above a line at the top, before history begins. The scale is compressed: long stretches with nobody on the chart take less room than the crowded last two centuries, so read the years on the left-hand axis.
- Solid gold: teacher to disciple (initiation or direct discipleship).
- Dotted gold: membership of a monastic order. The rounded "Purī", "Giri" and "Sarasvatī" boxes are the orders themselves.
- Grey dashes: founding or leading an institution (dashed boxes), which is how most lines reach the present day.
- Pink dots: a documented meeting outside the formal line.
- Teal: a teaching passed on through texts or translation rather than in person.
- Blue dash-dot: an influence of ideas that scholars debate, not a teacher. Square boxes with a teal edge are texts and schools rather than people.
- Purple dashes: a link that rests on tradition or a single source and isn't historically attested.
- Red dots: a separation or dispute.
- Crimson dash-dot: a parallel between branches. These appear only when you select someone, so the tree stays readable.
Tap any person to highlight their links and read their story. Use Fit or 100% to zoom.
Lineages before Śaṅkara
Ādi Śaṅkara (c. 700–750 CE) stands where three kinds of inheritance meet: a chain of teachers that tradition recites, a body of texts he wrote commentaries on, and ideas from neighbouring schools that scholars still debate.
1 · The chain of teachers (guru-paramparā)
Advaita monks still chant this verse before teaching:
व्यासं शुकं गौडपदं महान्तं गोविन्दयोगीन्द्रमथास्य शिष्यम् ॥
श्रीशङ्कराचार्यमथास्य पद्मपादं च हस्तामलकं च शिष्यम् ।
तं त्रोटकं वार्त्तिककारमन्यानस्मद्गुरून् सन्ततमानतोऽस्मि ॥
| Stage | Teachers | What it claims |
|---|---|---|
| Divine daiva | Nārāyaṇa → Brahmā | The teaching comes from God, not from any person. A Śaiva form of the chant begins with Sadāśiva instead. |
| Sages ṛṣi | Vasiṣṭha → Śakti → Parāśara → Vyāsa → Śuka | Five generations, literally father to son, ending with Vyāsa, compiler of the Vedas, and his son Śuka. |
| Human mānava | Gauḍapāda → Govinda → Śaṅkara | Generally treated as historical. "Śuka taught Gauḍapāda" bridges centuries. |
The verse continues past Śaṅkara to his four disciples. Tradition places one at the head of each of his four maṭhas, and from those maṭhas come the ten Daśanāmī orders ("ten names"). Three of those orders carry branches on this tree: Purī, Giri and Sarasvatī.
2 · The texts he inherited
The prasthāna-traya ("three foundations"): the Upaniṣads, especially Uddālaka Āruṇi's tat tvam asi ("you are that") and Yājñavalkya's neti neti ("not this, not this"); Bādarāyaṇa's Brahma Sūtras, whose author tradition identifies with Vyāsa; and the Bhagavad Gītā. Every Vedānta school must comment on all three, and Śaṅkara's commentaries on them are his main works. Behind him also stand earlier Vedāntins now known only from quotations. He cites "the revered Upavarṣa" and Dramiḍācārya, and argues against Bhartṛprapañca. Closest of all is Gauḍapāda's Māṇḍūkya Kārikā, the earliest surviving systematic Advaita text, which Śaṅkara commented on.
3 · Influences scholars debate
Mahāyāna Buddhism. The Kārikā's fourth chapter borrows heavily from Madhyamaka and Yogācāra: no-origination (ajāti) echoes Nāgārjuna. Rival schools later called Śaṅkara a "Buddhist in disguise" (pracchanna bauddha). Most modern scholars see Gauḍapāda adapting Buddhist arguments and Śaṅkara rooting them back in the Upaniṣads.
Mīmāṃsā. From the ritual-exegesis school of Śabara and Kumārila he took rules for reading scripture, but not its view that the Veda is mainly about ritual action. Legend has him defeat the Mīmāṃsaka Maṇḍana Miśra in debate, after which Maṇḍana became his disciple Sureśvara.
Bhartṛhari, the grammarian-philosopher of "Brahman as the Word" (śabda-brahman), is also sometimes named as an influence, but how much is disputed.
Dates
Modern scholarship mostly places Śaṅkara around 700–750 CE (older books say 788–820). Some maṭha traditions give much earlier dates, back to the 5th century BCE.
The four maṭhas
Tradition says Śaṅkara founded a monastic seat (maṭha or pīṭha) at each of the four corners of India and put one of his four disciples at the head of each. Each seat guards one Veda and one of the Upaniṣads' four "great sayings" (mahāvākya), and each ordains monks into particular orders among the ten names (Daśanāmī). Their heads are still called Śaṅkarācārya.
| Seat | First head* | Veda · great saying | Orders |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jyotirmaṭha North · Joshimath | Toṭaka | Atharva · ayam ātmā brahma "this Self is Brahman" (Māṇḍūkya) | Giri, Parvata, Sāgara |
| Śṛṅgerī South · Karnataka | Sureśvara | Yajur · ahaṃ brahmāsmi "I am Brahman" (Bṛhadāraṇyaka) | Sarasvatī, Bhāratī, Purī |
| Govardhana East · Puri | Padmapāda | Ṛg · prajñānaṃ brahma "consciousness is Brahman" (Aitareya) | Vana, Araṇya |
| Dvārakā West · Gujarat | Hastāmalaka | Sāma · tat tvam asi "you are that" (Chāndogya) | Tīrtha, Āśrama |
What this means for the tree: the orders in bold have branches here. The Ramakrishna line (Purī) and the Sivananda–Chinmaya line (Sarasvatī) both trace to Śṛṅgerī, and Yukteswar and Yogananda's Giri vows trace to Jyotirmaṭha.
*Who headed which seat? Every account puts Sureśvara at Śṛṅgerī and Toṭaka at Jyotirmaṭha. For the other two, the commonly repeated list (above) puts Padmapāda at Govardhana and Hastāmalaka at Dvārakā, while Śṛṅgerī's own account reverses them. The tree draws the common list and shows Śṛṅgerī's version when you select either disciple.
How certain is this? The four-seat scheme is first described in the later hagiographies of Śaṅkara (the Śaṅkara-digvijaya texts), and accounts differ on which disciple headed which seat. Śṛṅgerī's continuous line is the best documented. Jyotirmaṭha lay vacant for well over a century before its revival in 1941. The Kanchi Kāmakoṭi Pīṭham, home of Mahā Periyavā, claims to be a fifth seat founded by Śaṅkara himself, with Sarvajñātman as its second head under Sureśvara's care. The other four dispute this, and scholars place Sarvajñātman around the 10th century.
More than four disciples
The four are the disciples every tradition agrees on, but the stories name more. Fourteen are credited with verses 14–27 of the Bhaja Govindam, one verse each. One commentary lists the four plus Subodha, Nityānanda, Ānandagiri, Dṛḍhabhakti, Nityanātha, Yogānanda, Surendra, Medhātithi, Bhāratīvaṃśa and Sumati. Almost nothing is known about the other ten, and one tradition makes them the founders of the ten orders. The Śaṅkara-digvijaya also names Citsukha, but the famous Advaita author Citsukha lived in the 13th century, as did the commentator Ānandagiri, who was a pupil of Śuddhānanda, not of Śaṅkara.
Kerala's four. In Thrissur, four maṭhas (Naduvil, Thekke, Vadakke and Edayil) are traditionally founded by the same four disciples, who handed them to Nambudiri successors. Kerala legend places Śaṅkara's samādhi at the Vadakkunnathan temple there. Naduvil and Thekke are still active; Vadakke became a Vedic school, and Edayil moved to Tirur. Sources differ on which disciple founded which.
Patañjali and the Yoga Sūtras
Patañjali's Yoga Sūtras are 196 aphorisms on stilling the mind. No branch on this tree descends from him by initiation, so he stands on the tree as a source, like the Upaniṣads. Yogis traditionally honour him with this verse:
योऽपाकरोत्तं प्रवरं मुनीनां पतञ्जलिं प्राञ्जलिरानतोऽस्मि ॥
Two sūtras that matter for this tree
1.2 yogaś citta-vṛtti-nirodhaḥ: "Yoga is the stilling of the movements of the mind." 2.1 tapaḥ-svādhyāyeśvara-praṇidhānāni kriyā-yogaḥ: "Austerity, self-study and surrender to God are kriyā-yoga." That second sūtra is where the name Kriyā Yoga comes from.
Where it enters each branch
Kriyā Yoga: Yogananda quotes sūtra 2.1 to set Lahiri Mahasaya's technique in Patañjali's tradition. Ramakrishna–Vivekananda: Vivekananda's Rāja Yoga (1896) is a commentary on the Sūtras and introduced them to the West. Śaṅkara rejected the dualist philosophy behind Yoga (Brahma Sūtra 2.1.3) but accepted its practice; a commentary on the Sūtras is attributed to him, though scholars dispute it. The Nāths: the Haṭha Yoga Pradīpikā presents haṭha yoga as the stairway to rāja-yoga.
How certain is this?
The dates are wide: anywhere from the 2nd century BCE to the 4th century CE. Much recent scholarship treats the Sūtras and the commentary attributed to Vyāsa as one work of about 400 CE. Tradition identifies the author with Patañjali the grammarian (2nd century BCE), but most scholars think they are two different people.
The best-known modern yoga lineage also starts here: T. Krishnamacharya and his students B. K. S. Iyengar, K. Pattabhi Jois and T. K. V. Desikachar. That lineage could become a branch of its own.
Ramakrishna–Vivekananda
Ramakrishna took sannyāsa from Totāpurī, a Purī monk. Vivekananda brought the teaching to the West in 1893 and founded the Ramakrishna Mission and the Vedanta Society of New York. That society is now led by Swami Sarvapriyananda.
Kriyā Yoga
The Kriyā technique came from Mahavatar Babaji through Lahiri Mahasaya to Sri Yukteswar, who also took formal vows in the Giri order. Yogananda brought Kriyā to America in 1920. After him the line divides: Self-Realization Fellowship, led today by Swami Chidananda, and Swami Kriyananda's Ananda, which separated from it.
Chinmaya
Swami Chinmayananda took sannyāsa from Swami Sivananda and studied Vedānta under Tapovan Maharaj in the Himalayas. From 1951 he taught the Gītā and Upaniṣads in English to anyone who came, and Chinmaya Mission grew around those talks.
The Ramana branch
Ramana took no vows and had no human guru: he said the hill Arunachala was his guru. He joins the root by teaching rather than ordination, having translated Śaṅkara's works into Tamil. He also named no successor, so his influence spread along several separate lines.
The texts
Śivaprakāśam Pillai's questions of 1902 became Nān Yār? ("Who am I?"). Gaṇapati Muni recorded the Sanskrit Ramaṇa Gītā. Muruganār's Guru Vācaka Kōvai was revised by Ramana himself, and the Tamil line passes from Muruganār through Sādhu Ōm to the translator Michael James.
Those who realised in his presence
Lakṣmaṇa Swāmy (1949), and through him Mathru Śrī Sāradā (1978). Papaji (met 1944) became the most prolific teacher. Besides Gangaji and Mooji, his Lucknow students who went on to teach include Eli Jaxon-Bear, Isaac Shapiro and Madhukar. Another, Andrew Cohen, later broke with him publicly.
Carrying him to the world
Paul Brunton's book (1934) first made him known in the West, after the Kanchi Śaṅkarācārya sent Brunton to him. Somerset Maugham visited in 1938, and Ramana is widely taken as the model for the sage in The Razor's Edge (1944). Arthur Osborne wrote the standard biography and founded The Mountain Path (1964). A review in that journal sent Ramesh Balsekar to Nisargadatta. David Godman, the ashram's historian, wrote the books that record most of these lives.
The ashram
Sri Ramanasramam is run by his brother's family: Niranjanānanda Swāmi (until 1953), T. N. Venkataraman (1953–94), V. S. Ramanan (1994–2020), and today Dr. Venkat S. Ramanan.
Nāth · Inchegiri
The Nāth yogis are a separate Śaiva tradition, not Śaṅkara's teachers, and several centuries later. The householder Inchegiri line claims descent from them, and through it came Nisargadatta Maharaj. His talks were recorded as I Am That by Maurice Frydman, a devotee of Ramana. Through Gorakhnāth the Nāths also reach Jñāneśvar, Guru Nānak's debates and much else: see Gorakhnāth in the wider culture.
Gorakhnāth in the wider culture
No figure on this tree left a wider footprint outside the monastery than Gorakhnāth. His Kānphaṭa ("split-ear") yogis wandered everywhere, and their stories passed into the languages, festivals and politics of northern India and Nepal.
Saints and literature
Marathi. Through Gahinīnāth and Nivṛttināth the Nāth line reaches Jñāneśvar, whose Jñāneśvarī (1290) founds Marathi literature and the Vārkarī movement. Hindi. The Gorakh Bānī, verses in early Hindi attributed to him, shaped the language of later poet-saints such as Kabīr. Punjabi. Guru Nānak debated the Nāth siddhas in the Siddh Gosht, and Gorakh is named in the Japji. In Wāris Shāh's Heer (1766), heartbroken Rānjhā has his ears split and becomes a jogi at Tilla Jogian, the Nāths' hilltop seat. Bardic tales. The renunciations of King Bhartṛhari and his nephew King Gopīcand are still sung by Nāth bards from Rajasthan to Bengal. The Bengali Gorakṣa-vijaya tells how Gorakh rescued his own guru Matsyendra from a kingdom of women, which gave Hindi the saying "Jāg Machhandar, Gorakh āyā!" ("Wake up, Matsyendra, Gorakh has come!").
Nepal
The Gorkha kingdom, and through it the "Gurkha" soldiers, is traditionally said to take its name from him; a cave at Gorkha is said to hold his footprints. The Shah kings who unified Nepal put "Śrī Śrī Śrī Gorakhanātha" on the reverse of their silver mohars, from Prithvi Narayan Shah onwards. In Patan the month-long Rāto Machhindranāth chariot festival retells the legend that Gorakh, slighted, sat on the rain-bringing serpents and caused a twelve-year drought. Only when his guru Matsyendranāth was brought to the valley did Gorakh rise to honour him, and the rains came. In Newar Buddhism the same Matsyendranāth is worshipped as Karuṇāmaya, a form of Avalokiteśvara.
Kings and politics
Maharaja Man Singh of Jodhpur (r. 1803–1843) believed the Nāth guru Āyas Dev Nāth had foretold his kingship during a siege. In gratitude he built Jodhpur's Mahāmandir for the Nāths, gave them land and power at court, and commissioned a celebrated series of Nāth paintings. In the present day, the Gorakhnath Math in Gorakhpur, the city named after him, is headed by Yogi Adityanāth, who has also been Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh since 2017.
Language
Gorakh-dhandhā means a tangle or puzzle in Hindi and Urdu (and, less kindly, a shady business). It is often said to come from a Nāth ring-puzzle, though that origin is not documented. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's qawwali "Tum ek Gorakh-dhandhā ho" ("You are a puzzle") turns it into an address to God. In 2021 Haryana barred the phrase from official use after Nāth followers objected to it. The yogis' greeting "Alakh Niranjan!" is still heard across North India.
Practice
Early haṭha-yoga texts such as the Gorakṣa Śataka are attributed to him, and the Haṭha Yoga Pradīpikā names him among its masters. In Tamil Nadu he is often identified with Korakkar, one of the eighteen Siddhars.
Gorakhnāth's own dates are uncertain (estimates run from the 11th to the 14th century), and many of these links, including the Gorkha etymology and the Rāto Machhindranāth story, are tradition rather than history.
Where the branches meet
The branches share roots but never merged. They touch through a handful of documented meetings and several parallels, all listed under Between the lineages on the tree page.