The Guru Charitra is a Marathi text in ovi verse on the lives of Sripada Sri Vallabha and Sri Narasimha Saraswati, held in the Datta tradition to be avatars of Dattatreya in the Kali age. Its author, Saraswati Gangadhar, names himself a descendant of Sayamdev, a disciple of Sri Narasimha Saraswati, and tradition holds that the Guru himself bade him write it. It is told as a conversation: Siddha Muni, a disciple of the Guru, tells it to Namdharak, a devotee on his way to Ganagapur, across fifty-two chapters, fifty-three in some editions; the last is a summary, the Avataranika.
Its fourth chapter tells of Dattatreya's birth to Sage Atri and Anasuya, and the chapters after it follow Sripada Sri Vallabha from Pithapuram to Kuravpur on the Krishna; the sixth tells how Ganapati set down at Gokarna the linga Shiva had given Ravana, worshipped at the Mahabaleshwar temple in this collection. From the eleventh chapter it follows Sri Narasimha Saraswati: born at Karanja, he spoke no word but Om until his thread ceremony, then recited the Vedas, took sannyasa at Kashi, lived twelve years at Narsobawadi and then at Ganagapur, where a poor household's old, barren buffalo gave milk when he came for alms. In chapter 51 he leaves for Srisailam, where, seated on a seat of flowers, he passes from sight, having told his disciples he truly remains at Ganagapur.
Datta devotees hold the Guru Charitra as their Veda; many read it through in a seven-day parayana, and on Datta Jayanti, the full moon of Margashirsha, gather at Datta temples to read it aloud. In this collection, Ganagapur, where the Bhima meets the Amaraja, keeps Sri Narasimha Saraswati's Nirguna Padukas, worshipped as his living presence, and Narsobawadi, where the Krishna meets the Panchganga, keeps his Manohar Padukas.