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.

A second reading comes from the eighth chapter of this Gita itself, which opens the letters of the name one by one: “a” for one freed from the noose of hope, stainless at beginning, middle and end, always at rest in bliss; “va” for one who has given up every vasana, whose speech is clean, who lives in the present; “ta” for one held in contemplation of the truth, free of worry and striving, free of darkness and ego. The verse for “dhu” is not printed in this text; the common text gives it to the one whose limbs are gray with dust and whose mind is washed clean. 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 no disciple asks a question here. The Bhagavad Gita has Arjuna, the Uddhava Gita has Uddhava, the Ashtavakra Gita has Janaka. In the Avadhuta Gita the listener shows only in the words of address, sumitra, tata, vatsa. Dattatreya speaks on in his own current, and perhaps for this reason the voice carries no ornament. 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, “jnanamritam samarasam gaganopamo’ham”, I am the nectar of knowledge, one even taste, vast as the sky, comes nearly forty times. In the fourth, “svarupa-nirvanam anamayo’ham,” I am the nirvana of my own nature, past every affliction. 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.

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 two-line shloka is the doorway into the whole text. The seventh 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. With each return the line settles deeper, and its meaning opens out in turn.