Gorakhnath and the Kanphata Yogis c8.88

c8.88

Lāl Pādris⁴ are not Gorakhnāthis, although they are often found in close association with them. They are followers of Dattatreya, who was eminent in the practice of Yoga and who is held in high esteem by Yogīs. He is considered by some to have been an incarnation of Kṛṣṇa.⁵ In the *Dabistan*, he is described in a contest of Yogic power with Gorakhnāth.⁶ Dattatreya was probably a deified Brāhman of the tenth century, to whom the famous story of the testing of the virtue of the wife of Atri has been attached.¹ His shrines are scattered here and there in the districts about Poona,² and in one place his image has three heads to represent the Hindu Triad.³ He was an Aghorī.