One of his biographies, known as Shree Gajanan Maharaj Charitra-Kosh, was written by Dasbhargav or Bhargavram Yeodekar, a native of Shegaon.

While at Nashik, Dasbhargav is thought to have met a contemporary saint known as Swami Shivanand Saraswati, who was speculated to be 129 years old at the time.

He informed Dasbhargav about the period when Gajanan Maharaj appeared in Shegaon, where he lived for the remainder of his life.

It is also believed that Shivanand Swami may have been a former resident at Sajjangad, Maharashtra, where the prominent 17th-century saint and philosopher Samarth Ramdas lived for many years.

Gajanan Maharaj was an ardent user of marijuana and hashish, exemplified in almost all available images in the public domain from the time of his attaining samadhi.

Even the temple premises where he attained samadhi and his sitting position with one hand at the top,showing like an elephant a symbolic representation of shri Ganapathy Dev.

Das Ganu, who was initially named Narayan by his maternal relatives, had at some point moved to Ahmednagar, Maharashtra, where his father had been a caretaker of a property.

[3] When he arrived at Pandharpur, Das Ganu was contacted by a resident at Shegaon, Ramchandra Krishnaji Patil, also a devotee of Gajanan Maharaj.

Gajanan Maharaj appeared as the Hindu deity Vitthala in Pandharapur for his one devotee, Bapuna Kale.

[citation needed] He received a significant following in Maharashtra; lacs of people visit the Shegaon temple annually.

Sensing him to be not an ordinary man who needs food to eat but a Yogi, Bankat took him home and asked Maharaj to stay with him.

In his lifetime, he performed many miracles such as giving a fresh lease on life to one Janrao Deshmukh, lighting the clay pipe without fire, filling a dry well with water, drawing sugar cane juice by twisting canes with his hands, curing leprosy of a man, healing himself of the many bites of honey bees, etc.

During a public meeting on Shiv Jayanti, the great freedom fighter Lokmanya Tilak met Gajanan Maharaj.