The son of sage Atri & Anusuya, Dattatreya is three headed representing Brahma, Vishnu & Mahesh. Anusuya had prayed that the Hindu trinity be born to her as her sons. His story is told in the Markandeya Purana where he is listed as the sixth avatar of Vishnu in a list of 24 avatars. We know this list of 24 got superseded by the now ubiquitous list ten Vishnu-avtar later. Dattatreya continues to be popularly worshipped in Maharashtra & Karnataka where there is a temple circuit in his honor and his birthday is celebrated as Datta Jayanti. He is supposed to be a recluse who gets annoyed when disciples follow him. Even the Vedas could follow him only in the form of dogs. A famous Raja Ravi Varma painting depicts him as such!

The Wikimedia image shows Ravi Varma’s painting of Dattatreya

In the Adi Parva, the Pandava princes go on a hunt accompanied by dogs. One of the dogs wandered where Eklavya was practicing and started barking. To shut the dog up, Eklavya shot a bunch of arrows into the dog’s mouth but without hurting it. When Arjuna found out, he complained to Guru Drona that he had failed his promise to make him the best as Eklavya was the better archer. Now Drona had refused to teach Eklavya some years ago and he used a statue of Drona instead as a mentor to hone his skills. Using this technicality, Drona asked Eklavya for his right thumb as Guru Dakshina. He was thus able to maintain his promise to Arjuna. This is used to suggest that a lower status Nishada archer was disadvantaged at the hands of a Kuru prince. However, Eklavya was the prince of Nishadas who had their own kingdom and not a low status person. His father was the general of Jarasandha, the king of Magadha at odds with Krishna. Perhaps that is why Drona refused Eklavya. It was perhaps Drona’s anxiety to meet his promise to his employers that drove him to the macabre act. We don’t know. What we certainly know that dogs were used for hunting in ancient India.

Image from Wikimedia shows a 2013 Indian stamp depicting Eklavya gifting his thumb.

In some stories Bhairava is created by Shiva and in some he is a manifestation of Shiva. He is the one who cut off Brahma’s fifth head for being less than truthful. In some traditions Bhairavas are the 64 kshetrapalas who are the guardians of all directions. As per tantra, there are 64 Bhairavas associated with 64 Yoginis. Out of them, 8 are considered more important. Statues of these eight main Bhairavas are found in Kashi/Benaras. The Kala Bhairava shows the deity riding a dog. In one of the tantric texts, Vatuk Bhairava is described as ‘sarameya samanvitam’ – surrounded by dogs. Bhairava statues from the 9th cent CE onwards show him surrounded by dogs, in some he rides a dog. In modern temples, Bhairava is largely depicted mounted on dogs. There is an interesting variant of Bhairava worshipped in Maharashtra as Khandoba who is a warrior king riding a white horse and his dog running alongside. There is a famous Khandoba temple at Jejuri dating back to the 14th cent CE. While mainline tradition was indifferent to dogs, the tantric tradition had a special place for them.

The Wikimedia image sourced from Wellcome Images shows a Bhairva riding a dog alongside a worshipper

There are roughly 550 Jataka stories which describe the Buddha’s previous births in which he is known as Boddhisattvas. The Buddha was born as a dog in one story. In the Kukkuta Jataka, the Bodhisattva is the leader of stray dogs in Varanasi and seeks justice for them from the king when they are accused of a crime committed by royal dogs. In comparison, the Buddha had 18 births as a monkey, 11 as a deer, 10 as a lion, 6 as elephant, 5 as a crow, 4 each as horse, cow & snake, 3 as lizard, 2 each as jackal & pig and an assorted number of births as birds. One can say for sure that Buddhism held no animosity towards any animal!

The image from the website of Cernuschi Museum shows a sculpture based on Kukkuta Jataka

36 years after the great war, Krishna’s Dwarka is destroyed by civil war and floods. Distraught, the Pandavas renounce their kingdom and head north with the idea of going to heaven in their own bodies. Except Yudhistira, all other Pandavas & Draupadi die on the way. A dog accompanies a lonely Yudhistira to the gates of heaven. Indra allows Yudhistira but bars the dog. Yudhistira refuses to enter without the dog and then it is revealed that it is Dharma himself guiding the great king. Dogs normally don’t have such high status in Indian tradition. Some of the smritis are quite negative about dogs though tantra has a special place for them. Among other cultures, dogs had high status in ancient Egypt & Sumeria where they could not be killed. It was a practice in Zorasterian funerals for the dead person’s body to be exposed to the glance of a dog, considered sacred. Dogs were valued as loyal companions in ancient Greek & Rome and in China they were considered harbingers of fortune. Judaism, Christianity & Islam had negative perceptions about dogs who then lost their status in regions dominated by these cultures. Later, European aristocrats prized them as hunting animals and dogs made a comeback in European social life and by the 18th cent CE, had regained their status as a human’s best friend.

Image is of the book cover of Mallar Chatterjee’s book showing Yudhistira ascending heaven with his dog

Worship of Bhairava as a form of Shiva occurs prominently in Nepal and dogs figure prominently as his vahana. The second day of Diwali celebrations in Nepal is called ‘kukkur tihar’ with dogs being worshipped with aarti, tilak, garlands and food being especially made for them. Similar worship happens on Bhairava Ashtami. Nepal also has the Buddhist god Yamantaka associated with dogs. Bhairava & his dog vahan are a big part of Tantra and Nepal has a hallowed tantric tradition. Tibet, like Nepal, is a tantric stronghold, though of the Buddhist variant. Dogs are regarded as superior animals in Tibet with a human like nature and the saying goes that happiness is accompanied on one’s travels by a dog. No wonder, some of the best breeds of dogs originate in Tibet!

The Wikimedia image shows Kukur Tihar celebrations in Nepal

Between the 9th-13th cent CE, tantra began to thrive and so did the cult of dakinis & yoginis. Yogini temples have been found in Odisha, MP, UP & TN. As per this tradition, the western direction is that of the dead and is presided by a red colored dakini named Svanasya and as the name implies, she is dog headed or dog faced. Yogini temples were round and there are two extant famous ones at Hirapur, Odisha and Morena, MP. These circular temples were the likely inspiration for the circular architecture of the old parliament building built by the British in Delhi. Incidentally, in the Bhishma Parva of Mahabharata, Arjuna prays to Durga for victory. She is called ‘Kokamukha’, dog faced (koka means wild dog). Dog headed goddesses were worshipped in ancient Egypt (Anubis) & Sumeria (Bau). Such unexpected connections across centuries & geographies!

The Wikimedia image by Dr Sandip Roy shows a Yogini with a buffalo head from the National Museum Delhi

The Shanti Parva tells the story that once the great sage Vishwamitra was alone and in a place where famine was raging. He could not get food & water for many days. At last, he came to a village of chandalas in the night and entered a house where dog meat was kept. The owner awoke and rebuked the sage that he should not eat the meat as it was against his dharma. Vishwamitra replied that he was half dead with hunger and couldn’t distinguish between right & wrong. He then took the meat, cooked it, and offered it to gods and ancestors. Just then, the rains came rushing down and life was revived all around. The text doesn’t state whether the sage actually ate the meat or not, but that is immaterial. The story shows that dog meat was prohibited in ancient times. Intriguingly, Vishwamitra’s sons were named Sunah-puccha (dog’s tail) & Sunah-shepa (unclear meaning but something to do with dogs). Debroy argues that the sage’s name can be read as Vi-shva-mitra or special friend of dogs (shva is a name for dogs). He makes the case that Vishwamitra was a sage who loved dogs, given how his & his son’s names had connections with dogs.

The Wikimedia image by Suraj Belbase shows a statue of Vishwamitra at the Gokarnashwar Mahadev Temple

Mahabharata is structured as a narration by Souti to other sages. He starts with the story of King Janmejaya, son of Parikshit & grandson of Abhimanyu and how the sage Vaishyampayana had first narrated the story of the Bharata (Kuru) family to him. He also tells the tale that Janmejaya was holding a yagna when a dog came along. His brothers beat up the dog who went crying to his mother. The mother dog came and complained to the king and cursed him for beating up his son for no reason. Janmejaya had to follow some rituals to absolve himself of this curse. The story confirms that by the time of the writing of Mahabharata epic, dogs had started to be considered unclean. A study of what Puranas (3rd cent CE onwards) say of dogs reveals that because of being considered unclean, dogs were deemed to be instruments of torture in hell, their meat was forbidden and they were associated with the untouchable chandalas. Given this negative association, it is intriguing that dogs started being used for divination. Even today, many believe that the crying of dogs in public places leads to the death of leaders.

The image from Wikimedia shows Janmajeya & brothers mistreating the dog. Jijithnr, wikipedia.

Sri Rama’s step mother Kaikeyi sent him into exile and she hailed from Kekaya which roughly corresponds to the Punjab region. After Rama’s exile, when Bharata returns to Ayodhya, he brings along as gifts gigantic dogs with sharp teeth as powerful as tigers. Dogs hardly figure in the Ramayana elsewhere. But Sita is said to wear earrings shaped like dog’s teeth, thus there was no sense of uncleanliness associated with it. In the Uttara Kanda, a dog is barred from making a complaint to King Rama as an ordinary being and is only allowed when Rama makes an exception. The Ramayana shows that the dog was not so common in the Ganga plain in its time but ubiquitous in the North West. It is also considered an ordinary animal. This attitude becomes the norm in later Indian tradition where dogs are not considered special. It is only in some forms of Tantra that dogs are considered important.

This story is not in the original Ramayana but is in the popular narrations.

Image shows a 2005 Indian Stamp featuring the Himalayan sheep dog, Wikimedia Commons

In the Rig Veda, Sarama is Indra’s messenger to the Panis asking them to give up their cows. Sarama is a constellation that rises just before the Sun. This may have originally meant an astronomical phenomenon. Sarama means fleet of foot and could mean the dawn (Usha) requesting the night (Pani) to give up the rays of the sun (go means both cows & rays). But subsequently, Sarama got referred as the dog of the devas and in later Vedic literature she became the mother of Syama & Sabala – the dogs of Yama, god of death and by extension of all the dogs of the world. Some variation of the Sarama story is told in many early Indo European cultures. Interestingly, Panis got associated with merchants and the Sanskrit & old Germanic word for commerce, ‘vanijya’ & ‘vanir’, comes from it. The dog association with the god of death exists in many early civilisations. The goddess of death in Egypt (Anubis) & in Sumeria (Bau) had the heads of dogs. In Persia, a dog was supposed to lead the soul across the bridge to heaven or hell. In Greece, the dog Cerebrus was the protector of the underworld.

Image shows dog figurine discovered in Harappa, Harappa.com

The earliest prehistoric cave paintings in India are at Bhimbetka. One of them shows a man leading a dog, in what looks like a fairly modern leash. Dog figurines have been found in the Harappan civilization (3rd millennium BCE) including a begging dog with a beaded collar from Harappa and a fighting dog with a projecting collar from Mohenjodaro. Mesopotamian texts refer to spotted or red dogs that came from Harappa. At a Harappan site in Rupar and at a Neolithic site in Kashmir (Burzoham), a dog’s skeleton is found buried with a man’s. Perhaps the animal was a favorite and buried alongside. While domesticated dogs seem to be very old in India, DNA research suggests that they are not indigenous and must have migrated to India very early.

Image shows a rock painting from Bhimbetka showing a man with a dog on leash, Encycloworld Heritage Postcard