Dattatreya
दत्तात्रेय दत्तात्रेय
Also Datta, Guru Datta, Avadhuta, Sripada Srivallabha, Narasimha Saraswati.
SmartaSaivaVaishnava
Who this is
Dattatreya is the guru of gurus, with three heads for Brahma, Vishnu and Siva in one person, and his tradition is the one that refuses to pick a sect. He is the patron of the renunciate and of the householder who keeps a guru, and in Maharashtra and north Karnataka his lineage is a living one: Sripada Srivallabha, Narasimha Saraswati and, for many families, Sai Baba of Shirdi and Swami Samarth of Akkalkot are counted in it. What he is known for is the teaching that a teacher is anywhere: he named twenty four of them, and none was a person.
How to recognise them
Three heads and six arms, holding the trident and drum of Siva, the conch and discus of Vishnu, and the rosary and water pot of Brahma. Four dogs at his feet for the four Vedas and a cow behind him for the earth. Often shown instead as the padukas, a pair of sandals, which is how most Datta shrines are worshipped, without a figure at all.
Family and companions
Son of the sage Atri and Anasuya, whose chastity was so complete that the three gods came to test it and were turned into infants by her and nursed, and were given back on condition that they be born to her as one son. Hence the three heads.
How they are worshipped
Thursday; Datta Jayanti on the Margashirsha Pournima; the Gurucharitra saptah before it.
Thursday is his day, the guru’s day. The padukas are worshipped rather than an image in most shrines. The Gurucharitra is read over seven days, the saptah, finishing on Datta Jayanti. The cradle is hung at dusk on the Pournima and the birth celebrated at that hour, not in the morning. Audumbar, the cluster fig, is his tree and is worshipped where it stands.
The stories
As they are told, with the disagreements left in
The twenty four teachers
Asked who had taught him, he named twenty four, and not one was a man. The earth, for bearing what is done to it. The wind, for moving among things without taking their smell. The sea, for staying level whatever runs into it. The moth, for what desire does. The honey bee, for taking a little from each flower and ruining none. The python, for waiting. A child, for being happy without a reason. A girl, who when grinding grain for guests broke all but one of her bangles so the noise would not betray her poverty, teaching him that a crowd makes noise and one alone is quiet. The list is the tradition’s standing argument that a teacher is not a credential.
The three who came to test Anasuya
The wives of Brahma, Vishnu and Siva, jealous of Anasuya’s reputation, sent their husbands to test it. They came as three brahmins and asked to be fed by her naked. She saw what it was, sprinkled water from her husband’s feet, and the three became infants, whom she fed and nursed. The wives came to ask for them back. She gave them, on the condition that the three be born to her as one child, and that is Dattatreya. The story is told in Maharashtra as being about her and not about them.
Where the regions differ
- Tamil
- Kerala
- Telugu
- Kannada
- North
- Maharashtra
- Bengal
- Punjab
- Assam
- Sri Lanka
- Nepal
- Gujarat
- Odisha
- Mithila
- Kashmir
- Tulu Nadu
- manipur
- rajasthan
- konkani
- sindhi
- jharkhand
- himalayan
- kodava
- Maharashtra
- Gangapur, Narsobawadi and Audumbar on the Krishna are the seats, the Gurucharitra is read in the saptah, and the lineage runs on through Akkalkot and Shirdi.
- Karnataka
- North Karnataka keeps Ganagapur as its chief Datta shrine, and the Thursday worship of the padukas is widespread.
- Gujarat
- Girnar is held to be where he still walks, and the Datta padukas at the summit are climbed to by ten thousand steps.
- Andhra and Telangana
- Pithapuram, the birthplace of Sripada Srivallabha, is the Telugu centre, and the charitra is read there in the same seven day form.
Their days
Every one of these has a page of its own
Where to see them
From the temple directory
- Shri Saibaba Samadhi Mandir, Shirdi Shirdi, Ahmednagar, Maharashtra