दत्तात्रेय चालीसा

Forty chaupāī verses between opening and closing dohās, in Hindi. It sets down the iconography first — three heads and six arms, the sky for a garment, trident and water-pot in the right hands, discus and conch in the left, ash smeared over the body and matted hair piled up, four dogs at his feet for the four Vedas and Kāmadhenu standing beside him. Then it turns to what he taught and to whom: the twenty-four gurus taken from the world itself, earth and water and wind, sun and moon and sea, the honeybee, the python and the cātaka bird; the instruction given to King Yadu that the Bhāgavata records; the knowledge given to Paraśurāma and the powers given to Kārtavīrya Arjuna. Its later verses name the afflictions it is set against — the debt owed to the fathers, the serpent-knot of the horoscope, the pressure of Śani, Rāhu and Ketu — and appoint Thursday for the reading.