Dattātreya: avatāra, avadhūta and teacher of yoga

Dattātreya is the son of the ṛshi Atri and his wife Anasūyā. The Purāṇas speak of him as an avatāra (a descent) of Bhagavān Vishṇu, and also as one who carries the combined presence of Brahmā, Vishṇu and Śiva, the Trimūrti. He lived as a wandering avadhūta (a free renunciant who has dropped all social marks) and he taught yoga and the way to moksha (liberation) to kings and ṛshis.

Birth and identity

The name Dattātreya means “the one given to Atri” (or “born of Atri”). Anasūyā was a pativratā (a wife wholly devoted to her husband).

The Mārkaṇḍeya Mahā Purāṇa tells how he was born. The brāhmaṇī Kauśikī had stopped the sun by the pativratā-śakti (the power of her devotion to her husband). Anasūyā stepped in and settled this crisis. In answer to her great tapas (austerity) and her calm, Brahmā, Vishṇu and Śiva each came as her son. Candra was the portion of Brahmā, Dattātreya was the portion of Vishṇu, and Durvāsa was the portion of Śiva.

In another account, the three divine wives, Sarasvatī, Lakshmī and Pārvatī, tested the pativratā of Anasūyā. They sent their husbands to her disguised as guests who begged for alms on impossible terms. The power of Anasūyā turned the three devas into infants. When the test was accepted and the devas were restored, they gave her a vara (a boon): the Trimūrti would be born as her son. The child born of this vara was Dattātreya, who carried within him the presence of all three. The Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 11th Skanda, Chapter 7, is the source cited for this account.

He wandered the world as an avadhūta. He was completely free, claimed by no āśrama (stage of life), known by no social class. He carried nothing and clung to nothing. He rested in the constant, undivided knowledge of Brahman.

The āśrama of māyā

In the Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa, Dattātreya lives as a wandering yogī. His āśrama has what looks like strange conduct: wine (madya) and women (strī). The Purāṇa makes clear that this is the chosen outer form of his divine māyā. It hides him, so that only those with true śraddhā (faith) and the guidance of a teacher can know him. Garga Maharshi advised Kārtavīryārjuna: “What you see is the play of māyā; what is within is the Supreme.”

The same texts say that he is sometimes shown drinking wine, sometimes with women, sometimes looking mad. These are the marks of one who is beyond all convention. His outer conduct means nothing, because inside he knows Brahman, who does not change.

The twenty-four gurus

The best known teaching of Dattātreya is in the Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 11th Skanda, Chapters 7 to 9. Yadu Mahārāja met Dattātreya wandering, joyful and content, with no disciples, home or goods. Yadu asked where his wisdom and contentment came from. Dattātreya replied that he had taken the whole world as his teacher. He had learned a lesson that frees from twenty-four kinds of beings. Each lesson is a plain look at the truth about reality, consciousness or the right conduct of a free person.

Pṛthvī (Earth): bears all beings without complaint and forgives every hurt. She teaches kshamā (patience) and steadiness.
Vāyu (Wind): passes through every place and is touched by none. It teaches non-attachment and freedom from stain.
Ākāśa (Sky): clouds and mountains seem to cut it up, but it is never really divided. It teaches advaita (non-duality) and non-attachment to apparent limits.
Jala (Water): pure, cleansing, and flowing to the lowest place. It teaches purity, humility and giving without condition.
Agni (Fire): burns all things and is not changed, and purifies what it touches. It teaches taking in and changing.
Candra (Moon): grows and shrinks but is itself not changed. It teaches that the changes seen in the body are not changes in the ātman (the self).
Sūrya (Sun): draws up water and gives it back as rain without loss. It teaches non-attachment in giving and taking.
Kapota (Pigeon): teaches the danger of too much attachment to family. Too much love for their young led a pair of pigeons to ruin when their nestlings were caught. Only detached love protects.
Ajagara (Python): lies still and eats only what comes to it without effort. It teaches santosha (contentment) and trust in what Bhagavān Vishṇu provides.
Sindhu (Ocean): takes in all rivers and keeps its own nature. It teaches calm of mind and inner steadiness.
Pataṅga (Moth): is destroyed by being drawn to fire. It teaches the danger of unguarded attraction to beauty.
Bhṛṅga (Bee): takes the best from many flowers without harming any. It teaches care in what one learns and a light way of living.
Gaja (Elephant): is caught by its own desire when it goes near a wooden elephant set as a trap. It teaches the danger of sense desire.
Matsya (Fish): is caught by bait set for its craving for taste. It teaches the danger of craving for food and for the tongue.
Piṅgalā (the courtesan): found vairāgya (detachment) when she saw that the ātman alone is her true beloved. She teaches that āśā (hope) set on anything other than Bhagavān Vishṇu is the root of sorrow.
Kurarī (Osprey): was attacked by stronger birds because it held a piece of meat. When it let go, the attacks stopped. It teaches the freedom that comes from giving up possessions.
Śiśu (Child): plays freely, with no past and no future. It teaches playfulness, freshness and freedom from the pain of memory.
Kumārī (the young girl pounding grain): took off her bangles one by one so they would not clash and make noise. She teaches solitude and silence.
Śara-kṛt (the arrow-maker): was so absorbed in making an arrow that he did not see the king’s procession pass. He teaches one-pointed attention.
Sarpa (Snake): lives alone, moves without a sound and takes what is at hand. It teaches solitude, simplicity and contentment without needing a fixed home.
Ūrṇanābhi (Spider): spins its web out of itself and draws it back into itself. It teaches that Brahman is the source and the end of all creation.
Supeśakārī (the caterpillar changed by its own thought): it thought so hard on the wasp that had put it in a cell that it became like the wasp. It teaches the changing power of contemplation (upāsanā).
Kṛmi (Worm): was put in a cell by a wasp. It teaches that one becomes what one meditates on.
Ātman (one’s own self): the last guru is one’s own direct experience of the Paramātman within. In the end no outside teacher is needed, for the inner witness is always present.

Teaching Kārtavīryārjuna

In the Mārkaṇḍeya Mahā Purāṇa, Kārtavīryārjuna came to the āśrama of Dattātreya and served him with the deepest devotion. He pressed his feet and offered flowers, sandalwood, scented water and fine food. He played the vīṇā and the flute and attended on him all the time. When Dattātreya offered him a vara, Kārtavīryārjuna showed that he understood who Dattātreya was. He called him “Purāṇa Purusha” (the Original Being) who hides himself in māyā.

Dattātreya was deeply pleased and gave him every vara he asked for:

Great skill in ruling.
Knowledge to track his enemies.
A thousand arms, and the power to move anywhere.
Death only at the hands of a greater man.
Just rule.
Wealth that never ran out, to use for dāna (giving).
Rule over all, with the blessing of Īśvara.

Dattātreya also described the pūjā that wins his favour: gandha (scent), mālyā (garlands), pure offerings, meat, wine, music, honouring brāhmaṇas, offering water for the feet, and music of the vīṇā and veṇu (flute). All this is done with Lakshmī as his consort.

The Mahābhārata, Vana Parva, Chapter 114, also names Dattātreya as the giver of these varas. Lomaśa tells Yudhishṭhira how Kārtavīrya, king of Māhishmatī on the Narmadā, wanted to be the most powerful ruler of his age. He pleased Dattātreya, who is called a divine ṛshi whose very being is a portion of the Supreme. Dattātreya gave him a thousand arms, the power to rule with perfect justice, the conquest of the whole earth, and death only at the hands of one greater than himself. With these gifts Kārtavīrya became the unchallenged king of his time. But his pride led him to take the divine cow of Jamadagni by force. That began the chain of events that ended in his death at the hands of Paraśurāma.

In the Anuśāsana Parva, Chapters 152 and 157, the vara of Dattātreya is the starting point of the Pavana-Arjuna Saṃvāda. There the king, drunk on his vara, boasts that he is above the brāhmaṇas, and Vāyu corrects him at length. The king himself admits that all his strength and fame came from the grace of Dattātreya alone.

Teaching Alarka

Alarka, son of Ṛtadhvaja and Mādālasā, came to Dattātreya after losing everything outside him. His brother Subāhu, helped by the king of Kāśī, had taken his kingdom. His armies were destroyed and his treasury was empty. He had read the ring his mother Mādālasā had given him, with words cut into it, which had turned him inward. He came to Dattātreya looking for the path to moksha.

Dattātreya taught him the whole of yoga in an orderly dialogue over many sessions:

The body is a city with nine gates (nava-dvāra-nagarī). Its true king is the caitanya-purusha (the conscious self). Its two ministers are manas (mind) and buddhi (intellect). Its great enemy is the rāga-śatru, the army of attachments.
The tree of ahaṃkāra-avidyā has its root in the ego and its branches in mamakāra (the sense of “mine”), and it bears sorrow as fruit. It is to be cut down with the axe of jñāna (knowledge) sharpened on the whetstone of sat-saṅga (company of the good).
The four stages of prāṇāyāma (breath control) that lead to dhvasti, prapti, samvit and prasāda.
The practice of trī-daṇḍī: control of speech, action and mind.
The five mahāvratas (great vows) of the yogī: asteya, brahmacarya, tyāga, alobha and ahiṃsā.
Oṃkāra as the bow, the ātmā as the arrow, and Brahman as the target.
The signs that death is near, and how the yogī who knows them should at once enter yoga-nishṭhā (firm yoga).

In the Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa, Chapters 16 to 21 and 35 to 39, Dattātreya also appears as the guru of Alarka and other royal seekers. He teaches the whole yoga-śāstra: the pañca-mahāvratas, five niyamas, the stages of prāṇāyāma, and the ashṭa-siddhis (eight powers) that come from mastering them. He always puts these powers below the highest goal, moksha, and warns against being drawn off by them.

After these teachings Alarka gained jñāna and vairāgya. He went back to Subāhu and the king of Kāśī without hostility and gave them the kingdom. He pointed them to the true enemy inside.

Dattātreya thus taught a king who sought rule by dharma and a king who sought moksha.

Prahlāda and Dattātreya, Bhāgavata 7th Skanda

The seventh Skanda of the Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, Chapter 13, tells of a meeting between Prahlāda and Dattātreya Maharshi. It is part of Nārada’s full teaching of dharma to Yudhishṭhira.

The setting. Dattātreya lay on the bare ground on the bank of the Kāverī river, on the slope of the Sahya Parvata (Sahyādri, the Western Ghats). He was living in the way of the python (ajagara-vṛtti): he ate only what came to him by itself, lay completely at rest, and was covered in dust, so that his tejas could not be seen.

Prahlāda was then ruling over the rākshasas. He was travelling through the worlds with his ministers to learn the nature of living beings (prāṇi-tattva). He met Dattātreya and could not tell, from his looks, deeds or speech, whether he was a siddha-purusha (a perfected person). He bowed to the ground with sāshṭāṅga-praṇāma (the full bow) and asked:

“You have a strong body. But a strong body needs wealth, and wealth needs effort. You make no effort. How do you have this strong body without effort and without any clear enjoyment? You are learned and able, yet while the world is sunk in actions you stand quite indifferent. What is the reason?”

The teaching of Dattātreya.

On craving. Tṛshṇā (craving) cannot be filled by sense-objects. It only drives the jīva (the living being) through an endless line of births and deaths. He saw that actions meant to remove suffering only made more suffering, and so he gave them up altogether.

The nature of the jīva is a treasury of bliss (sukha-nidhāna). When all activity stops, the bliss of the true self shows itself. Pleasure comes only when the mind meets sense-objects through the indriyas (senses). Knowing this, Dattātreya lives out his prārabdha (the karma now ripening) without chasing pleasure, and is always happy.

Two gurus from nature.

The honey-bee. The bee works to gather honey, only to have it taken by another who kills the bee. In the same way, gathered wealth is stolen at the cost of life itself. From the bee Dattātreya learned complete vairāgya from all desires.
The python (ajagara). The python moves for nothing. It waits for whatever Īśvara’s will brings of its own accord, and if nothing comes, it lies still with patience for many days. From the python Dattātreya learned santosha (contentment).

The avadhūta’s even mind. Sometimes he has little food, sometimes much. One person gives it with respect and another without, and he takes both with the same mind. Sometimes he lies on bare earth, sometimes on a palace bed. Sometimes he goes naked like a piśāca, sometimes adorned. He neither scolds an insult nor praises honour too much. He only prays for the moksha of all beings, which is union with Parabrahma, the Sarvātman.

How to dissolve many-ness. Dissolve the nānātva (many-ness) into manovṛtti (movements of the mind), the manovṛtti into manas, manas into ahaṃkāra, ahaṃkāra into māyāśakti, and māyāśakti into ātmānubhūti (direct experience of the self). Then, firm in ātmanishṭhā (rest in the self), stop the actions that carry the sense of being the doer (kartṛtva).

Dattātreya ended: “You are one who has taken Bhagavān Vishṇu as your śaraṇa (shelter). That is why I have told you this account of myself (ātmakathā), though it is a great secret. My conduct goes beyond the rules of the world and of the śāstra.”

Prahlāda was filled with great joy. He did pūjā to Dattātreya and, with his leave, went home.

Son Nimi and the origin of śrāddha

The Mahābhārata, Anuśāsana Parva, Chapters 91 and 92, names a son of Dattātreya called Nimi. He is a different Nimi from King Nimi of Videha in the Ikshvāku line. His son Śrīmanta was a tapasvin (one who practises tapas) and died after a thousand years of tapas. Nimi, in his grief, made up the first funeral rites and offerings to the pitṛs. His grandfather Atri then taught him the true śrāddha-vidhi (the rules of śrāddha).

Dattātreya on khecarī-mudrā

In the Mahābhārata, Aśvamedhika Parva (the Anugītā), Chapter 19, in the dialogue of the brāhmaṇa and Kāśyapa, the siddha Kāśyapa describes the yoga practice of khecarī-mudrā. The tongue is turned backward into the hollow of the skull and the gaze is fixed between the eyebrows. He quotes Dattātreya directly as an authority on it:

antaḥ kapāla-vivare jihvāṁ vyāvṝtya cārpayet, bhrūmadhya dṝshṭir hy eshā mudrā bhavati khecarī

The meaning: the tip of the tongue is to be turned back and fixed inside the hollow of the skull, with the gaze fastened between the eyebrows. This is khecarī-mudrā.

The passage adds that the same method lies behind the teaching of the Bhagavad Gītā:

bhruvor madhye prāṇam āveśya

This means “placing the prāṇa (life-breath) between the eyebrows.” Dattātreya is named here as an authority on yoga, as he is across the Purāṇas, where he teaches the whole yoga-śāstra to Alarka and other seekers.

Sources

Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 7th Skanda, Chapter 13
Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 11th Skanda, Chapters 7 to 12 (Chapter 7 for his birth and conduct, Chapters 7 to 9 for the twenty-four gurus)
Mārkaṇḍeya Mahā Purāṇa, Chapters 16 to 21 and 35 to 39
Mahābhārata, Vana Parva, Chapter 114
Mahābhārata, Anuśāsana Parva, Chapters 91 and 92 (Nimi and śrāddha)
Mahābhārata, Anuśāsana Parva, Chapters 152 and 157 (Pavana-Arjuna Saṃvāda)
Mahābhārata, Aśvamedhika Parva (Anugītā), Chapter 19