Dattatreya is a deity in whom the three great gods are joined in a single form: he is shown with three heads, for Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, and six arms, attended by four dogs, often said to represent the four Vedas, and a cow, the earth. He is the son of the sage Atri and his devoted wife Anasuya, whose virtue was such that the three gods came to test her and were transformed by her into a single child. What distinguishes Dattatreya from the temple gods is that he is above all a guru, a teacher: he is an avadhuta, a naked wandering ascetic who has passed beyond ordinary social and ritual bounds, and he is regarded as the archetype and fountainhead of teachers in several ascetic lineages, including the Nath yogis and the Mahanubhava and Dattatreya traditions of western and southern India.
A celebrated passage of the Bhagavata Purana has Dattatreya explain that he took twenty-four teachers from the world around him, the earth, the wind, the sky, a honeybee, a python, a courtesan, a child, and others, learning a lesson in detachment or contentment from each, a teaching that expresses his character as one who finds wisdom everywhere and is bound to no institution. He is worshipped as the ideal of the realised, free wandering teacher, and his shrines are especially numerous in Maharashtra and Karnataka.