Sri Dattatreya Ashtottara Shatanamavali

A hundred and eight names of Dattatreya, opening Om Anasuyasutaya Namah, Om Dattaya Namah, Om Atriputraya Namah. Thursday is his day and Datta Jayanti falls on Margashira Purnima. For Karnataka the centre of this worship is Ganagapur in Kalaburagi district, at the meeting of the Bhima and the Amarja, where the padukas rather than an image are the object of daily service.

Significance

Look at the order of the first three names. Before anything about three heads, six arms or yogic power, the list says whose son he is: Anasuya's son, the one given, Atri's son. Datta means given, and the name carries the story. The Puranas tell it with differing details, but the shape is constant: the three gods came to test Anasuya's steadfastness, she turned them into infants, and the child who came of it was the gift.

He is worshipped as a guru rather than as the granter of any particular boon, and that changes how the namavali is used. People come to Datta with the kind of problem you would take to a teacher rather than to a court. Thursday, guruvara, is his day for that reason. The image itself is read the same way: three faces for the trimurti, the cow behind him understood as the earth, the four dogs at his feet as the four Vedas.

Ganagapur is where this becomes concrete for Kannada devotees. Narasimha Saraswati is held to have stayed there, the nirguna padukas are worshipped in place of a murti, and the practice of madhukari survives, where devotees beg a little food at five houses before eating. A major kshetra that asks its visitors to go begging is worth noticing; it says something about what the sampradaya thinks a guru's devotee is. The Guru Charitra, read in a seven-day saptaha, is the text most households pair with this namavali.

How and when to chant

Thursday morning, after bathing, is the standard slot. Datta Jayanti on Margashira Purnima is the year's main day and is usually kept in the evening. Households that fast do so on Thursdays, and some keep it only through the Margashira month.

For the archane, keep flowers or tulasi to your right and offer one at each name. Where a family has padukas, whether brought from Ganagapur or not, the offering goes at the padukas. An audumbara, the cluster fig, is associated with Datta, and where one grows people will do the pradakshina there rather than indoors.

The Guru Charitra is the other half of the practice for most Datta households. Its fifty-one chapters are read over a seven-day saptaha, often ending on a Thursday, and the ashtottara archane is done at the close of each day's reading. If you are new to this, the simpler route is to do the archane weekly for some months before attempting the saptaha, which is demanding and traditionally observed with rules about food and sleep.

No initiation is needed for a namavali. If you have a guru in a Datta line, follow whatever they told you, since this sampradaya takes such instructions seriously.