PANDHARPUR YATRA : The HOLY sandals belonged to Sant Dnyaneshwar, the first in a long line of poet-saints of the Warkari tradition in Maharashtra is carried by His followers from his samadhi at Alandi, near Pune, to the Vitthala temple in Pandharpur. Over the centuries, this walk has grown into a massive march in which followers of various saints in the tradition — significantly Tukaram, but also many others — walk there from different places with their guru’s sandals enshrined in palanquins and push-carts. The various processions unite as they near Pandharpur and then inundate the temple on the ekadashi of the Hindu calendar’s Aashaadha month. The temple is merely the culmination; walking there is the pilgrimage. The Wari’s unit of organisation is the dindi — a group of anywhere from a few dozen to a thousand men and women, often from the same village or community. Each dindi marches four or five abreast, the men dressed in white with a Gandhi cap, the women bringing up the rear, carrying pots of water and tulsi plants on their heads. Several of the men carry three-quarter-kg cymbals; a few carry a pakhawaj; at least one carries a been — a tanpura-like instrument symbolising the poet-saints of the tradition, whose compositions called abhang are sung while walking. The three-week march is punctuated at different places by rituals and events for entertainment, all keeping to a tight schedule. If it all feels a little like a marching army, it’s probably because the plan was drawn up by a early 19 century devotee called Haibat Baba who was also a chieftain accustomed to mobilising troops. The Wari is an impactful event in Maharashtra, so exalted that people fall at the feet of those who are doing the pilgrimage Poet-saints associated with the tradition — Dnyaneshwar, Tukaram, Eknath, Namdev, and others — are towering and almost iconoclastic figures in Marathi culture.
Posted on: Thu, 10 Jul 2014 14:16:37 +0000
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