The Avadhuta Gita is traditionally attributed to the sage Dattatreya, who is revered in Hindu tradition as an incarnation of the divine trinity—Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. Within the spiritual imagination of India, Dattatreya stands as a paradigmatic figure of the liberated being, one who has gone beyond conventional boundaries and embodies the non-dual wisdom that the text itself proclaims. This traditional attribution is not merely a matter of historical curiosity; it reflects how generations of seekers have understood the voice that speaks through the scripture’s radical declarations of Advaita.

At the same time, the precise historical authorship of the Avadhuta Gita is uncertain and remains a matter of scholarly debate. The work is best regarded as a collection or crystallization of teachings associated with Dattatreya rather than a text that can be confidently assigned to a single, identifiable historical author. In that sense, the name “Dattatreya” functions as both a spiritual symbol and a traditional ascription, pointing to a lineage of insight rather than a clearly documented individual writer. For those drawn to its teachings, this ambiguity can itself be instructive: the scripture’s message of non-duality is voiced through a figure whose historical contours are indistinct, mirroring the way Advaita dissolves fixed identities into a larger, undivided reality.