Vitthala / Vithoba Ji

Vithoba, also called Vitthala or Panduranga, is a form of Krishna, and so of Vishnu, worshipped chiefly in Maharashtra and Karnataka as the presiding deity of Pandharpur and the focal point of the Varkari devotional tradition.

He is called Panduranga, and, in the loving, familiar register of Marathi devotional poetry, simply Vitthal. His consort, Rukmini, is addressed as Rakhumai.

He is depicted as a dark-skinned young boy, standing with his hands set akimbo on his hips, upright on a brick, an unusually informal, unarmed posture for a major Vaishnava deity that Varkari poet-saints read as a sign of his approachability and love for his devotees.

Legend holds that his devotee Pundalik, absorbed in caring for his aged parents, asked the visiting god to wait rather than interrupt his duty and threw down a brick for him to stand on; Vithoba is said to have stood on that very brick at Pandharpur ever since, waiting for his devotees. Generations of Varkari poet-saints, among them Tukaram, Namdev, Eknath and Dnyaneshwar, composed devotional songs (abhangs) to him that remain central to Marathi devotional literature.

Understood as a form of Krishna, and through him of Vishnu; his consort Rukmini is worshipped alongside him at Pandharpur as Rakhumai.

He is the object of the Ashadhi and Kartiki Ekadashi pilgrimages (wari) to Pandharpur, in which hundreds of thousands of Varkari pilgrims walk for days singing abhangs, one of the largest and oldest continuous walking pilgrimages in the world.

His cult is centred on Maharashtra, with a significant following in Karnataka as well; the Varkari tradition's emphasis on devotional song over ritual formality, and its openness across caste lines, distinguishes it within wider Vaishnavism.