DATTATREYA JAYANTI
Dattatreya Jayanti is an important Hindu festival, celebrated on the full moon night of the month of Margashirsha (December). Lord Dattatreya is considered to be one of the 24 incarnations of Lord Vishnu. He is usually depicted with three heads and six hands. His three heads stand for the trinity, consisting of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. The various accoutrements of the three gods are held in his six hands – Brahma’s kamandalu and japa mala, Vishnu’s conch and chakra and Shiva’s trident and damaru (drum).
There is an interesting Puranic story relating to his birth. The sage Atri’s wife, Anasuya was renowned in all the three worlds for her great chastity. Hearing about this from the sage Narada, the wives of the trinity, Saraswati, Lakshmi and Parvati were intrigued and begged their husbands to go to Atri’s ashrama in order to test the power of Anasuya’s chastity. They dressed as mendicants and appeared at the ashrama when Atri was not present and begged for food. Anasuya was only too happy to oblige them and told them to seat themselves. But the three replied that they had taken a vow to eat only when served by a naked woman. Anasuya was not a whit put out and by the power of her chastity she changed all the three gods into small babies and proceeded to feed them naked!! But she did not return them to their own forms. After some time, their wives began to get worried and went to the ashrama and discovered the plight of their husbands. They were convinced of Anasuya’s chastity and begged her to turn them back to their original forms. She readily agreed and asked for a boon in return, that they should be born as her son.
Dattatreya was born as a result of this boon and hence he has all the powers and accoutrements of the three deities. Thus, by worshipping him we get the benefit of worshipping all the three gods.
Interestingly you will find that he is always followed by four dogs, that stand for the four Vedas which he was a master of. You will always find the temples of Dattatreya to be filled with dogs which are fed even before food is offered to him.
While Dattatreya’s exact historical origins are unclear and trace to inconsistent mythologies, His life stories are more consistent. He is described in the Mahabharata as an exceptional Rishi with extraordinary insights, capacities and knowledge. The classical texts describe Him as having renounced the world and left His home early to lead the life of wandering ascetic. After leaving home, Dattatreya wandered naked in search of the Absolute. He seems to have spent most of His life roaming around the area between North Mysore, Maharashtra, and Gujarat as far as the Narmada River. He attained full realisation at a place not far from the town now known as Ganagapur near the peak at Mount Girnar. The original footprints of Datta are still believed to be located at the top of this mountain.
Some of the main temples dedicated to him are in Gangapur in Karnataka, Narasimha Wadi in Kolhapur, Maharashtra, Pitapuram in Andhra Pradesh, Audumbar in Sangli and Girnar in Saurashtra.
Dattatreya taught that anything on this earth can become a guru for us with the right perception.
The first five were the great five elements that make up this world and our own bodies. The earth taught him patience, air taught him that the true sadhu should be detached from anything like the air which carries all odours by does not retain any for itself. The sky never gets covered with the clouds. They come and go. The moon waxes and wanes but never really changes.
He takes up all the forces of nature and shows how every single thing is capable of teaching us something. Thus, he gained a lot of wisdom by observing many things in Nature, like the pigeon, the python, the honey bee, the osprey, the sea, the moth, the elephant, the deer, the fish, Pingala - the prostitute, the child, the maiden, the snake, the arrow maker, the spider, and the caterpillar.
These are some of the great truths taught by Dattatreya to King Yadu who was a progenitor of the Yadava clan and forefather of Lord Krishna.
On his Jayanti let us pray to him to bless us with all wisdom and the ability to love everything and learn from all the teachers that Nature provides for us. The following is his gayatri. This year 2024 his Jayanti falls on 14th December.
Aum Digambaraya vidmahe
Yogeeshwaraya dimahi
Tanno datta prachodayath