Stories 4
Tradition: Smarta · clear
Anasuya tests the three gods
Narada provokes the three consorts into sending their husbands to test Anasuya's virtue; she turns them into infants and nurses them; the consorts beg for their husbands and she asks for sons — one three-headed Dattatreya, or three sons.
Dattatreya: the three natures in one son
The sage Atri and his wife Anasuya earn great merit through their conduct and austerity.
How Vishnu and Shiva became one body
Vishnu and Shiva merge into a single form — to end a dispute among devotees, to kill Guhasura whom neither could kill alone, or at Parvati's prayer to reconcile two serpent kings. Shiva is the right half, Vishnu the left, in every telling.
Three gods in one guru
Maharashtra folds Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva into the single three-headed guru Dattatreya, whose cult grows from the Guru Charitra and is claimed by Nath and Mahanubhava lines.