Pandharpur

Pandharpur, on the banks of the Bhima (locally called Chandrabhaga) in Solapur district, is one of Maharashtra’s most important pilgrimage towns, especially for the Varkari tradition. Its history is woven around the worship of Vithoba (Vitthal), a form of Vishnu/Krishna standing on a brick with hands on hips, alongside Rukmini.

References to Pandharpur as a sacred place appear in medieval Marathi and Kannada literature from around the 12th–13th centuries, when the cult of Vithoba began to flourish. The temple’s early development is associated with various Deccan dynasties—Yadavas of Devagiri, later the Bahmani and Deccan sultanates, and then the Vijayanagara and Maratha powers—who, despite religious differences, often granted land and protection to this major pilgrimage centre because of its economic and cultural importance.

From the 13th century onward, Pandharpur became the heart of the bhakti movement in Maharashtra. Saints like Dnyaneshwar, Namdev, Eknath, Tukaram, Janabai and others composed abhangs (devotional songs) to Vithoba, and their poetry fixed Pandharpur in the spiritual imagination of Marathi-speaking people. The great wari pilgrimages, especially in Ashadhi and Kartiki, where lakhs of Varkaris walk for days singing kirtans to reach Vithoba’s temple, shaped the town’s identity.

Under British rule and after Independence, Pandharpur remained primarily a religious town, its economy and culture still centred on the temple, river ghats and the rhythm of annual yatras.