Shree Gurudev Datta Mahatmyam

Shree Gurudev Datta Mahatmyam ।। श्री गुरुदेवदत्त माहात्म्यम् ।।
लेखक : प्रताप अनंत गोगावले
गोगावले स्वामी मठ,
४९, मंगळवार पेठ, पुणे - ११
Lord Dattatreya, from his incarnation in the Satya Yuga (the Age of Truth), the first of the four Ages, has been bestowing the True Knowledge, which in essence is the direct cognition (Aparoksha Dnyan), as against didactic understanding (Paroksha Dnyan) of the Self that frees one from the bondage of Maya, the apparently never-ending cycle of birth, death and rebirth, which is the root cause of all misery. He not only guided and helped disciples like Kartavirya, Parashuram, Yadu, Aayu, Prahlad and Alarka, but also through such disciples as Vishnu Sharma, established traditions of spiritual knowledge to help all sincere seekers. The word tradition is used here to refer to the continuous chain of Masters, each initiated by his predecessor, thus comprising a perennial source of spiritual knowledge. The existence of several such live traditions is the unique asset that endows India with the potential to be the spiritual lighthouse of the world.Even in the more recent times, Lord Dattatreya has been the source and sustenance of the major spiritual traditions like the Mahanubhav, Nath and Varkari.
The origin of the main Datta tradition, particularly prevalent in Andhra, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Gujarat, was established and propagated by the two incarnations of the Lord. The first one was Shripad Shrivallabh, born in Peethapur, a coastal town in Andhra Pradesh. The second one was Shri Narasinh Saraswati, born at Karanja in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra. Both incarnations were caused by the Lord’s boon to a virtuous woman to endow her with a revered and wise son like Him. Since there is no other like Him in the universe, He had to incarnate each time to fulfill the blessing. Another similarity in the two incarnations is that they both renounced worldly life at a tender age, without marriage and performed a pilgrimage of India, initiating Yogis and seekers, directing populace to the righteous path and establishing the edifice of Vedic religion, before settling down in a chosen place (Kurugaddi in case of Shripad Shrivallabh, and Ganagapur in the case of Shri Narasinh Saraswati) on the banks of Krishna or her tributary, to carry on their work. Both have “disappeared” from public view with no records or witnesses of their physical death. Their biographies are recorded by Shri Saraswati Gangadhar, the great-grandson of a major disciple of Shri Narasinh Saraswati, Sayandeo, in the Marathi book entitled Shri Gurucharitra, considered sacred by the followers of the Datta tradition. One of the major contributions of Shri Swami Maharaj was translation and interpretation of this gospel of the Datta tradition.We have recalled briefly the history of Shri Datta tradition to set the backdrop for an attempt to understand the relationship between Shri Swami Maharaj and his Lord and Master Shri Datta Prabhu. This task is indeed beyond human capacity and is undertaken here, not with any hope of success but because even a futile attempt may still purify the enquirer’s psyche and push him onwards on the path of Realization.