The Avadhuta Gita

A Song of the Self

Tradition holds that the rishi Dattatreya was the son of Atri and Anasuya, extraordinary from his earliest childhood. The Puranas describe him as the shared avatar of all three of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, a kind of divine convergence found nowhere else in Hindu storytelling. The longest account of his fame stands in the eleventh book of the Srimad Bhagavatam, where King Yadu asks him what the source of his unshakable peace is.

Dattatreya’s answer comes in the form of a list, known even today as the “story of the twenty-four gurus.” From the earth he learned endurance, from the ocean patience, from the honeybee the discipline of gathering nothing. One lesson lifted from each, which he settled into the practice of his own life.

The Avadhuta Gita is that same Dattatreya, in a different form. Here he answers no question and counsels no king. This is his own song, the song of his perfected state. Across all eight chapters, every shloka returns to a single center, “I am,” “I am That,” “I am all.” And this repetition carries meaning. It is the very method by which the text is meant to be read.

About the Word “Avadhuta”

Break the word “avadhuta” down by its grammar and you get “ava” and “dhu,” meaning “down” and “to shake off.” The one who has shaken everything off, the identities of society, the rules of tradition, the many layers of ego, that one is the avadhuta. Tradition names five marks: akulin (of no lineage), aniket (of no dwelling), avyangit (untouched by any injury to the senses), aprabuddha (outside the definitions of scripture), and nirankush (bound by no rule).

A second reading takes the four syllables of “a-vi-dhu-ta” separately: “a” points to the imperishable reality, “vi” to liberation, “dhu” to the destruction of doubt, “ta” to steadfastness in the truth. Both readings draw the picture of one and the same person. To an onlooker he may seem deranged. Within, he rests in a complete balance.

The Tone of This Text

The Avadhuta Gita builds no system of logic. It does not proceed by asking, explaining, and proving. It stands at the level of declaration. From the very first shloka Dattatreya speaks already seated on the summit, and what is asked of the reader is to strive to reach that height too, or at the least to be able to imagine it.

Another distinctive thing is that there is no disciple here. The Bhagavad Gita has Arjuna, the Uddhava Gita has Uddhava, the Ashtavakra Gita has Janaka. The Avadhuta Gita has no one. Dattatreya speaks alone, and perhaps for this reason the voice carries no ornament, none of the courtesies of address. A rishi seated in his own perfected state simply keeps saying whatever he wishes to say.

The third distinctive thing is repetition. Each chapter has some one central line that returns many times over. In the third chapter, “ज्ञानामृतं समरसं गगन-उपमो अहम्” comes nearly forty times. In the fourth, “स्वरूप-निर्वाण अनामय अहम्.” This text was composed for utterance and for taking in, so that with each breath drawn in and let out the words may settle within.

Eight Chapters

On Reading This

One clear point of entry is the opening of the first chapter, where the grace of Ishvara gives rise to the longing for non-duality. That shloka runs to five lines, the doorway into the whole text. The fifth chapter is the clearest portrait of the marks of the avadhuta, and readers who do not yet know what kind of person they are reading should begin right there.

The traditional way of reading is to repeat a single shloka again and again, sometimes spoken aloud, sometimes within the mind. The line as it stands in Sanskrit settles its sound and rhythm into place, and along with the English rendering the meaning too opens out in turn.