Traditional attributions to Sayam Maharaj likely mask a process of oral and scribal redaction. The earliest available manuscripts date to the late 16th century, though the internal colophons claim direct transcription from Nṛsiṃha Sarasvatī’s words. Philologically, the text exhibits a register of Marathi heavily inflected with Sanskrit and Persian administrative terms, suggesting a cosmopolitan provenance (Gansten, 2012).
The Gurucharitra (c. 15th–16th century CE) is a Marathi hagiographical compendium detailing the life and miracles of Śrīpāda Śrīvallabha and Śrī Nṛsiṃha Sarasvatī, two early avatars of the deity Dattatreya. This paper argues that the text functions not merely as devotional biography but as a manual for living guru-centric spirituality. Through a literary, theological, and ritual analysis, this study demonstrates how the Gurucharitra constructs the figure of the sadguru (true guru) as the sole arbiter of liberation, delineates a systematic guru-kingship model, and serves as the liturgical backbone for the Guru-caritra-pāṭha (ritual recitation). The paper concludes that the text’s enduring authority in Maharashtra and beyond lies in its dialectical resolution of bhakti (devotion) and śāstra (scriptural law) under the absolute sovereignty of the living guru. gurucharitra
The second incarnation (c. 1378–1458 AD), whose life forms the core of the text from chapter 11 onwards. Traditional attributions to Sayam Maharaj likely mask a
It utilizes the 14th-15th century Marathi "Ovi" meter. The Gurucharitra (c