Dattatreya (IAST: Dattātreya, Sanskrit: दत्तात्रेय), Dattā or Dattaguru, is a paradigmatic Sannyasi (monk) and one of the lords of Yoga in Hinduism.[1] In many regions of India and Nepal, he is considered a deity. In Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka and Gujarat he is a syncretic deity, considered to be an avatar (incarnation) of the three Hindu gods Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, collectively known as Trimurti.[2] In other regions, and some versions of texts such as the Garuda Purana, Brahma Purana and Sattvata Samhita, he is an avatar of Vishnu.[3]
His iconography varies regionally. In western Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, for example, he is typically shown with three heads and six hands, one head each for Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, and one pair of hand holding the symbolic items associated with each of these gods: rosary and water pot of Brahma, conch and wheel of Vishnu, trident and drum of Shiva.[2] He is typically dressed as a simple monk, situated in a forest or wilderness suggestive of his renunciation of worldly goods and pursuit of a meditative yogi lifestyle. In paintings and some large carvings, he is surrounded by four dogs and a cow, which is a symbolism for the four Vedas and mother earth that nourishes all living beings.[2][4] In the temples of southern Maharashtra, Varanasi and in the Himalayas, his iconography shows him with one head and two hands with four dogs and a cow.[5]
According to Rigopoulos, in the Nath tradition of Shaivism, Dattatreya is revered as the Adi-Guru (First Teacher) of the Adinath Sampradaya of the Nathas, the first “Lord of Yoga” with mastery of Tantra (techniques), although most traditions and scholars consider Adi Nath an epithet of Shiva.[6][7] His pursuit of simple life, kindness to all, sharing of his knowledge and the meaning of life during his travels is reverentially mentioned in the poems by Tukaram, a saint-poet of the Bhakti movement.[2] Over time, Dattatreya has inspired many monastic movements in Shaivism, Vaishnavism and Shaktism, particularly in the Deccan region of India, south India, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Himalayan regions where Shiva tradition has been strong.[8] According to Mallinson, Dattatreya is not the traditional guru of the Nath sampradaya, he was coopted by the Nath tradition in about the 18th century as a guru, as a part of Vishnu-Shiva syncretism. This is evidenced by the Marathi text Navanathabhaktisara, states Mallinson, wherein there is syncretic fusion of the Nath Sampradaya with the Mahanubhava sect by identifying nine Naths with nine Narayanas.[9]
Several Upanishads are dedicated to him, as are texts of the Advaita Vedanta-Yoga tradition in Hinduism.[10] One of the most important texts of Advaita Vedanta, namely Avadhuta Gita (literally, “song of the free”) is attributed to Dattatreya.[11][12] Annual festival in the Hindu calendar month of Mārgaśīrṣa (November/December) reveres Dattatreya and this is called Datta Jayanti.[13]
Self-education: the 24 Gurus of Dattatreya
The young Dattatreya is famous in the Hindu texts as the one who started with nothing and without teachers, yet reached self-awareness by observing nature during his Sannyasi wanderings, and treating these natural observations as his twenty four teachers.[21] This legend has been emblematic in the Hindu belief, particularly among artists and Yogis, that ideas, teachings and practices come from all sources, that self effort is a means to learning.[22][23] The 24 teachers of Dattatreya are:[21][24]
The Aghori (Sanskrit aghora)[2] are a small group of ascetic Shiva sadhus. Their practices are contradictory to orthodox Hinduism.[3][4]
Many Aghori gurus command great reverence from rural populations, as they are supposed to possess healing powers gained through their intensely eremitic rites and practices of renunciation and tápasya.
Aghoris also hold sacred the Hindu deity Dattatreya as a predecessor to the Aghori Tantric tradition. Dattatreya was believed to be an incarnation of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva united in the same singular physical body. Dattatreya is revered in all schools of Tantra, which is the philosophy followed by the Aghora tradition, and he is often depicted in Hindu artwork and its holy scriptures of folk narratives, the Puranas, indulging in Aghori “left-hand” Tantric worship as his prime practice.
An aghori believes in getting into total darkness by all means, and then getting into light or self realizing. Though this is a different approach from other Hindu sects, they believe it to be effective. They are infamously known for their rituals that include such as shava samskara or shava sadhana (ritual worship incorporating the use of a corpse as the altar) to invoke the mother goddess in her form as Smashan Tara (Tara of the Cremation Grounds).
In Hindu iconography, Tara, like Kali, is one of the ten Mahavidyas (wisdom goddesses) and once invoked can bless the Aghori with supernatural powers. The most popular of the ten Mahavidyas who are worshiped by Aghoris are Dhumavati, Bagalamukhi, and Bhairavi. The male Hindu deities primarily worshiped by Aghoris for supernatural powers are manifestations of Shiva, including Mahākāla, Bhairava, Virabhadra, Avadhuti, and others.
Barrett (2008: p. 161) discusses the “charnel ground sādhanā” of the Aghora in both its left and right-handed proclivities and identifies it as principally cutting through attachments and aversion and foregrounding primordiality; a view uncultured, undomesticated:
The gurus and disciples of Aghor believe their state to be primordial and universal. They believe that all human beings are natural-born Aghori. Hari Baba has said on several occasions that human babies of all societies are without discrimination, that they will play as much in their own filth as with the toys around them. Children become progressively discriminating as they grow older and learn the culturally specific attachments and aversions of their parents. Children become increasingly aware of their mortality as they bump their heads and fall to the ground. They come to fear their mortality and then palliate this fear by finding ways to deny it altogether.[9]
In this sense, the Aghora sādhanā is a process of unlearning deeply internalized cultural models.
Tantra (/ˈtʌntrə, ˈtæn-/; Sanskrit: तन्त्र, literally “loom, weave, system”) denotes the esoteric traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism that co-developed most likely about the middle of 1st millennium AD. The term tantra, in the Indian traditions, also means any systematic broadly applicable “text, theory, system, method, instrument, technique or practice”.[1][2]
Starting in the early centuries of common era, newly revealed Tantras centering on Vishnu, Shiva or Shakti emerged.[3] In Buddhism, the Vajrayana tradition is known for its extensive tantra ideas and practices.[4][5] Tantric Hindu and Buddhist traditions have influenced other Eastern religious traditions such as Jainism, the Tibetan Bön tradition, Daoism and the Japanese Shintō tradition.[6]
Certain modes of non-vedic worship such as Puja are considered tantric in their conception and rituals.