Avadhuta Gita
Avadhuta Gita (Devanagari: अवधूत गीता, IAST: ) is a Sanskrit text of Hinduism whose title means "Song of the free soul". The text's poetry is based on the principles of Advaita and Dvaita schools of Hindu philosophy. The text is attributed to Dattatreya, and extant manuscripts have been dated to approximately the 9th or 10th century. It consists of 289 "shlokas" (metered verses), divided into eight chapters. The first seven chapters are the text's oldest layer, and the eight chapter is likely a later interpolation. It may have been composed in the western states of India, probably  Maharashtra. "Avadhuta Gita" has been one of the most important texts of the Natha Yogi tradition of Hinduism. Date. Abhayananda states, "The actual date of authorship of the "Avadhut Gita" is unknown, but, judging by its terminology and style, it appears to have been written, not in the millennia prior to the Current Era, as legend would have it, but sometime around the 9th or 10th centuries of our Current Era. This does not, of course, preclude the possibility of an oral transmission to that point in time." Name. The title of the text, "Avadhuta" means "liberated soul", while "Gita  means song. The text describes the nature and the state of a person who is spiritually free and liberated. The text is also known as Avadhuta Grantha", "Dattatreya Gita", "Datta Gita Yoga Shastra" and "Vedanta Sara". Contents. The "Avadhuta Gita" is structured in 8 chapters, wherein Dattatreya—the symbol of the highest yogi and monastic life—describes as the divine master and example, the journey of self-realization, thereafter the nature and state of a person who lives in his soul's truth. Dattatreya asserts in the text, that the self-realized person is "by nature, the formless, all pervasive  Self". He is in the state of "sama-rasya" or "samata", which is where there are no differences between anything or anyone, neither one own's body or another person's, neither class nor gender, neither human being nor other living beings, between the abstract and the empirical universe, all is one interconnected reality, it is the unification of the One and the Beyond. His universe, all of the universe, is within his Atman (soul). "There is never any you and I", states verse 6.22. The chapters discuss 'contemplation', states Rigopoulos, as well as "sahaja amṛitam" 'nectar of naturalness'. Some  of its teachings have been compared to the "Bhagavad Gita". The term Sahaja, that became important in both Hindu and Buddhist tantric traditions, means "transcendent Reality, or Absolute". It is equated to "Sunya" (void) in Buddhism, envisioned as a kind of "unlocated paradise", states Rigopoulos. In Hinduism, it is the interior Guru within the person, the Sadashiva, the all pervading ultimate Reality (Brahman) that is the Atman (Self) within. Translation. The Brahmavadin journal published an English translation of the separate chapters of the "Avadhuta Gita" in Volumes 9 through 11, in early 20th century. The brief introduction with attendant English  translation of the "Avadhuta Gita" by Ashokananda (1893–1969) is reproduced in Katz. Reception. The text has been influential on the Nath tradition of Hinduism, states Rigopoulos, and its teachings form a foundation of their "Sama-rasya" doctrine: Passages of the text are found in numerous Hindu texts, such as in the widely translated Bhagavata Purana, which is the most popular Purana, where verses 8.2 to 8.4 of Avadhuta Gita appear as verses 11.11.29-11.11.31 as one example. The text's "nirguni" Brahman ideas influenced the poetry of Kabir, states Rigopoulos. Vivekananda (1863–1902) held the "Avadhuta Gita" in esteem and he  translated aspects of it in the following talk he gave on July 28, 1895, transcribed by his disciple Waldo: