Journey
Varkari palkhis
Each Āshādh the Varkarīs walk to Pandharpūr. Two palkhīs lead: Dnyāneshwar's sandals from Ālandi and Tukārām's from Dehū, converging on the Bhīmā after some two hundred and fifty kilometres. Walking is the observance itself — no caste order in the dindi, abhangs sung the whole way, and Vitthal waiting at the end.
Stops (3)
- Dehū · Tukārām — Dehū, the palkhī from the Indrāyani
Tukārām's town on the Indrāyani, where a seventeenth-century Kunbi grain-seller turned his ruined trade into some four thousand abhangs in plain Marathi. Brahmin opponents are said to have made him sink his manuscripts in the river; tradition has them float back after thirteen days. His palkhī leaves Dehū each Āshādh for Pandharpūr.
- Ālandi · Dnyāneshwar — Ālandi, the palkhī from the samādhi
Ālandi holds the samādhi Dnyāneshwar entered alive in 1296, aged about twenty-one, having already written the Dnyāneshwarī — a Marathi commentary on the Bhagavad Gītā that made Vedānta readable to people with no Sanskrit. His palkhī sets out from the samādhi and joins Tukārām's road south.
- Pandharpūr · Vitthal / Pānduranga — the end of the walk
The Bhīmā bends here into what pilgrims call the Chandrabhāgā, and Vitthal stands on a brick with hands on hips, waiting. The temple admits the pilgrim to touch the image's feet, which is the point of the walk. Ashādhi and Kārtiki Ekādashi each draw several hundred thousand Varkarīs into a town of ninety thousand.