Dhātā (Ṛshi of the Tāmasa Manvantara)

Dhātā, “the upholder, the one who establishes”

Dhātā has other meanings too: see all meanings of Dhātā.

Dhātā is one of the saptarshis, the seven ṛshis of a manvantara, in the age of Tāmasa Manu, the fourth of the Manus. The Brahma Purāṇa names him in its telling of the manvantaras, with Kāvya, Pṛthu, Agni, Jahnu, Kapīvān and Akapīvān. He is not Dhātā the Āditya, the son of Aditi.

The saptarshis of the Tāmasa manvantara

In Chapter 5, the Manvantara-kīrtana (“the telling of the manvantaras”), the munis ask Lomaharshaṇa how many Manus there are, what their times are and what happened in each. The Sūta answers that the history of the manvantaras cannot be told in full even in a thousand years, so he tells it in brief: for each Manu, the saptarshis, the line of sons and grandsons, and the groups of devas.

Of the Tāmasa manvantara he says that its saptarshis were Kāvya, Pṛthu, Agni, Jahnu, Dhātā, Kapīvān and Akapīvān. Dhātā is the fifth named. The Sūta then names the deva-gaṇas of that age and lists Dyuti, Tapasya, Sutava, Tapobhūta, Sanātana, Taporati, Akalmāsha, Tanvī and Parantava as “the ten told by Vāyu“.

Source: Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 5

Sources

• Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 5