24 Gurus of Dattatreya

I became a grandmother last month – Anasuyaa which means “without envy”- and that introduced me to yet another Hindu avatar Dattatreya, the son of Anasuyaa and Sage Atri.

Dattatreya is regarded as an incarnation of all three- Vishnu, Shiva and Brahma. While his birthplace is regarded as Mahur, Maharashtra some sources claim that he was born in Kashmir jungles near Amarnath. Guru Gobind Singh writes in the Dasam Granth that Dattatreya was an incarnation of Rudra. Dattatreya is the subject of the Dattatreya Purana.

Dattatreya interests me most because of his attachment to all the elements of nature. He is always depicted with four dogs and a cow. Pre-Vedic Indian dogs were regarded as auspicious symbols, and later deities assumed dog forms and were linked with glory, devotion and fidelity. The four dogs are supposed to represent the four Vedas. . They follow the Lord as “hounds of heaven, watchdogs of the ultimate Truth”. They help the Lord in “hunting” and finding pure souls. The cow represents Kamadhenu  the wish fulfilling cow or Mother Earth. He stands in front of the Audumbara, the celestial wish -yielding tree. All his temples emphasise his closeness to nature and the ultimate unity of everything.

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