Atri (अत्रि) is one of the saptarshi, the seven seers of Hindu tradition, and a mind-born son of Brahma. The fifth mandala of the Rigveda is attributed to Atri and his descendants, and Vedic legend credits the family with rescuing the sun from eclipse-darkness — an old association of the Atris with the restoration of light. But the sage owes his largest place in the later tradition to his marriage: his wife Anasuya, whose name means without envy, is the exemplar of wifely virtue, and their hermitage is a fixed point of the epic landscape.
The three sons
The best-known legend of the couple concerns Anasuya's testing. The Puranic tale relates that the Trimurti — Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva — came to try her virtue, and were defeated by it, reduced by her power to infants at her hermitage. From the episode, tradition derives the couple's three sons as partial embodiments of the three gods: Dattatreya, revered as an incarnation combining the Trimurti and honoured as a supreme teacher of yogis; the irascible sage Durvasa, born of Shiva's portion; and Chandra, or Soma, the moon, born of Brahma's. Few households in the mythology carry such offspring.
In the Ramayana
When Rama, Sita and Lakshmana enter the forest of exile, their first sheltering hermitage is Atri's. The aged Anasuya receives Sita, instructs her in the duties of marriage, and presents her with ornaments and garments that never fade — one of the epic's gentlest interludes, placed deliberately before the darkness of the abduction to come. The scene fixed Atri and Anasuya in devotional memory as the ideal ascetic household: power held quietly, hospitality without display.
Legacy
Atri's name endures in the gotra system, in which millions of Hindus still count themselves his lineal descendants, and in the star tradition assigns him in the Great Bear, where the seven seers shine together. Through Dattatreya he stands at the head of major ascetic and yogic lineages; through Durvasa, at the origin of some of the mythology's most consequential curses; through Soma, in the sky each night.
Further reading
- Doniger, Wendy. The Hindus: An Alternative History. Penguin, 2009
- Flood, Gavin. An Introduction to Hinduism. Cambridge University Press, 1996
- Klostermaier, Klaus K. A Survey of Hinduism. State University of New York Press, 2007
- Lipner, Julius. Hindus: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices. Routledge, 2010
- Stietencron, Heinrich von. Hindu Myth, Hindu History. Permanent Black, 2005
See also
This entry was last revised on 31 July 2026.