CHAPTER 15

1 A brief account of the Dattātreya tradition of gurus and their disciples is available on the Wikipedia online.

2 A biographical note of Shri Beedkar is available on the Internet; just google the name.

3 The words he used in Marathi were “ātmatejāce dhyān karaṇe, va dehaprārabdha bhogaṇe”.

4 The words between inverted commas are a paraphrase of the original Marathi words “sthirācara vayāpuni to paramātmā daśāṅguḷe uralā” or its Sanskrit equivalent “atyatiṣṭhat daśāṅgulam”.

5 The Marathi expression he used was: “ek pāy nirguṇāt, ek pāy saguṇāt”. This can be paraphrased to mean that he was simultaneously experiencing a transcendental state on the one hand, as well as a normal wakeful state of consciousness on the other.

6 The reason for the question mark in regard to the birth date here is that Shri Swami Samarth of Akkalkot was a legendary figure who is said to have been a contemporary of Narasimha Saraswatī (1378−1458), meaning that his life extended over some four centuries or more. Simply put, his background is shrouded in mystery, and his date of birth remains unknown.

7 For the original Sanskrit text of the Sāṁkhya Kārikā see the Nirṇaya Sāgar edition of 1940, and for an English translation see Larson, 1969.