Vithoba
विठोबा विठोबा
Also Vitthal, Panduranga, Pandharinath, Vithai.
VaishnavaVillage and folk
Who this is
Vithoba stands on a brick with his hands on his hips, waiting, and the posture is the whole theology. He came to see his devotee Pundalik, who was busy serving his parents and threw out a brick for the god to stand on until he was finished; the god is still standing on it. The Varkari tradition that grew round him is the most democratic devotional movement in Maharashtra: no caste bar, no Sanskrit requirement, saints who were tailors and potters and untouchables and women, and a pilgrimage made on foot twice a year with the palanquins of those saints carried at the front.
How to recognise them
Standing straight on a brick, hands on the hips, elbows out, a tall conical crown, a slight smile, dark stone. Rukmini stands in her own shrine beside him. The posture is unlike any other Vishnu image in India and is never varied.
Family and companions
Read as Vishnu or as Krishna. Rukmini, called Rakhumai, is his consort and has her own temple at Pandharpur. The Varkari saints are counted as his household: Dnyaneshwar, Namdev, Eknath, Tukaram, Janabai, Chokhamela and the rest.
How they are worshipped
Ashadhi Ekadashi and Kartiki Ekadashi; every Ekadashi; the wari fortnight.
The wari, the walk to Pandharpur for Ashadhi Ekadashi and again at Kartiki, is the practice: hundreds of thousands walking for a fortnight in dindis, singing abhangs. The tulsi necklace is worn, the forehead marked, the abhangs of Tukaram and Dnyaneshwar sung from memory. Devotees touch the feet of the image directly, which few great shrines allow.
The stories
As they are told, with the disagreements left in
The brick thrown out
Pundalik had been a bad son and was reformed, and had become so absorbed in serving his aged parents that when Vishnu himself arrived at the door he would not break off. He threw a brick out behind him and asked the god to wait on it. The god waited, and is waiting still, hands on hips, on that brick. The Varkari tradition takes it as the plainest statement it has: service to the people in front of you outranks the god at the door, and the god agrees.
Janabai and the grinding
Janabai was a maidservant in Namdev’s household and composed abhangs at the grindstone. The tradition says Vithoba came and sat beside her and helped her grind and sweep, and once was accused of stealing her necklace. Her verses are kept in the same canon as Dnyaneshwar’s and Tukaram’s, with nothing said about her being a servant or a woman except by herself. The Varkari movement’s claim to be casteless is tested against exactly this, and the fact that her songs are still sung by the lakh on the wari is the answer it gives.
Where the regions differ
- Tamil
- Kerala
- Telugu
- Kannada
- North
- Maharashtra
- Bengal
- Punjab
- Assam
- Sri Lanka
- Nepal
- Gujarat
- Odisha
- Mithila
- Kashmir
- Tulu Nadu
- manipur
- rajasthan
- konkani
- sindhi
- jharkhand
- himalayan
- kodava
- Maharashtra
- Pandharpur and the two waris are the centre of Marathi devotional life, with the palkhis of Dnyaneshwar from Alandi and Tukaram from Dehu walking at the head.
- Karnataka
- North Karnataka joins the wari and keeps Vitthal shrines of its own; the Haridasa tradition of Purandara Dasa sings to the same deity as Panduranga.
- Andhra and Telangana
- The Telangana districts bordering Maharashtra keep Panduranga shrines and send dindis to Pandharpur.
Their days
Every one of these has a page of its own
Where to see them
From the temple directory
- Shri Vitthal Rukmini Temple, Pandharpur Pandharpur, Solapur, Maharashtra
What is said
From the mantra library