PARI GSP Team

Namita Waikar

Sharmila Joshi

Editor and Series Editor

large_GSP-15.jpg

medium_GSP-15.jpg

small_GSP-15.jpg

thumbnail_GSP-15.jpg

GSP-15.jpg

This week, in the Grindmill Songs Project,  Muktabai Ubhe and Sitabai Ubhe from Kolavade village in Pune district sing five couplets about the warkaris’ pilgrimage to Pandharpur in Maharashtra
 
 
 
 
 In this edition of the Grindmill Songs Project, we publish five
 
 ovi
 
 about the Pandharpur
 
 wari
 
 . The
 
 wari
 
 is a biannual pilgrimage, when devotees of Lord Vitthal (also known as Vithoba or Pandurang) walk to Pandharpur town in Solapur district of Maharashtra, to meet their beloved
 
 maauli
 
 (mother) at the temple there. For the pilgrims, Vitthal is a deity who listens to them and nurtures them, and holds the place of a mother in their devotion. The
 
 warkari
 
 is a person who goes on this journey of about 21 days, on foot.
 
 The
 
 wari
 
 is undertaken twice in the Hindu lunar calendar year – during the month of Ashadh (June/July) and then again in Kartik, around October/November. The  June/July journey is more popular because it commences after the sowing of crops.  Farmers, shepherds, cowherds and others from rural Maharashtra are among the many who go on this pilgrimage. Several of the
 
 warkaris
 
 
 
 leave for the pilgrimage from urban areas too, where they have migrated from their village for work.
 
 In the 13th century, Sant Dnyaneshwar, who wrote the
 
 Dnyaneshwari
 
 
 
 (a commentary in Marathi on the
 
 Bhagavad Gita
 
 in the form of verse) went on this journey regularly. Sant Tukaram, whose poetry is collected in the Tukaram Gatha also frequently undertook the
 
 wari
 
 in the 17th century. Other poets like Janabai, Muktabai and Namdev of the 13th  century were also known to be regular pilgrims.
 
 All of them were poets from Maharashtra who revered Lord Vitthal. They belonged to the Bhakti tradition of devotional poetry, which began in southern India in the 7th century and spread northwards from the 12th to the 18th centuries. Bhakti was a progressive movement, its poetry spoke of social reform.

02_The_pilgrims_progress_NW_DSCN5544.JPG

The present day
 
 wari
 
 begins in two towns of Pune district. A procession starts from Alandi in honour of Dnyaneshwar, and another from Dehu in honour of Tukaram.  These two streams of the grand procession to Pandharpur meet in Pune city, stop there for two days and go onwards together up Hadapsar in Pune. They then branch out into separate processions meeting again at Wakhari in Pandharpur
 
 taluka
 
 
 
 of Solapur district and once again they merge before Pandharpur town.Devotees from various towns and villages of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, some of them in smaller processions in honour of other poets of the Bhakti tradition, also join the main procession going to Pandharpur at different points.

04_The_pilgrims_progressSS_GSP-_15.jpg

Muktabai Ubhe and Sitabai Ubhe from Khadakwadi hamlet of Kolavade village in Mulshi
 
 taluka
 
 , Pune district, sing the five
 
 ovi
 
 featured here. The original Grindmill Songs Project team recorded these couplets on January 6, 1996. We visited Kolavade on April 30, 2017 and met the singers. The photographs were taken during this recent visit.
 
 Muktabai starts by singing that she was not thinking of going to Pandharpur this year, but she received two messages from Vitthal, the deity at the temple in Pandharpur. The
 
 warkaris
 
 believe that Vitthal eagerly waits for his devotees to visit him every year.
 
 In the second couplet, the singer says she has been ready to go to Pandharpur since yesterday and Lord Vitthal has come to fetch her. His mare is grazing in the fields at the river bank.
 
 In the next verse, the woman has collected provisions for the journey and kept them ready since yesterday; she tells her son to put the sack of provisions on the back of their bullock, Havsha.
 
 In the fourth
 
 ovi
 
 , Sitabai tells her brother that she is willing to go to Pandharpur with him and they will both bathe in the Chandrabhaga.
 
 The pilgrims bathe in this river before they go to the temple to meet their beloved Vitthal.
 
 In the last couplet, the singer says her hair feels like it is clean and loose from bathing in the river Chandrabhaga. But she still does not feel that she has been to Pandhapur – and will go there.

It was not in my mind to go to Pandhari this year  The God Vitthal sent me two messagesTo go to Pandhari, I am ready since yesterday  Vitthal has come to fetch me, his mare is grazing near the river bankTo go to Pandhari, I have provisions from yesterday  I tell you, my son, put the sack on the back of Havsha bullockTo go to Pandhari, brother, I am coming with you  Come, let’s have a bath [in Chandrabhaga*]Today my hair is loose as if I have bathed in Chandrabhaga  I shall go to Pandhari, I don’t feel like I have been thereNote: * The Bhima river, also called Chandrabhaga, flows through Pandharpur.

<hr/>Performers/ Singers: Muktabai Ubhe, Sitabai UbheVillage: KolavadeHamlet : KhadakwadiTaluka : MulshiDistrict : PuneCaste : MarathaDate : These songs and some of the information were recorded on January 6, 1996. The photographs were taken on April 30, 2017.Photos: Namita Waikar and Samyukta ShastriPoster: Samyukta Sashtri and Sinchita Maji

Samyukta Shastri

The pilgrims’ progress

तीर्थ और यात्रा के बीच की डोर

वारकऱ्याची वारी...

Kolavade

At present, we can only accept donations in Indian rupees by Indian citizens. All donations made to the CounterMedia Trust are eligible for exemption under Section 80G of the Income Tax Act, 1961. Here is a copy of our exemption certificate.


India is bigger than New Delhi. And people need to know more about the rest of this vast nation.


Younger, media-saturated generations are growing up knowing little about their country, but a lot about the elites of a few metros and towns. For a narrowly-owned, commercially-driven media, the dumbing down of a nation is part of standard operating procedure. The last available data of the Centre for Media Studies (CMS, Delhi) show us that reports from New Delhi account for 66 per cent of news on the front pages of major dailies. The CMS data also found that just about 0.24 per cent of front page news came out of rural India. The TV channels are not much better.PARI exists to change that.We are a non-profit organisation. We publish under creative commons, and do not charge readers a subscription fee or put-up advertisements. Nothing is behind a paywall and we are completely free-to-access by anyone. We guard our independence and receive no direct grants from governments and corporations, nor any funding that could dictate our content. So, we are dependent on volunteer labour, donations from individuals, foundations and institutions that see value in independent and free media.PARI is changing the way Indian journalism reports and documents the rural.India is more than the elite of a few metros and towns. We report on rural lives and livelihoods, languages, communities, migrants and more. We need your help to pull off this most ambitious of Indian journalistic endeavours. The scale of this effort costs money. Donate generously - and spread the word about PARI.&nbsp;

Donate FAQs


Let’s get you acquainted

Welcome to PARI

All our content is, and will forever be free to consume. If you enjoy our work, you can support us by becoming a volunteer or by donating to help fund our work.

Want to republish this article? Please write to <a href="mailto:zahra@ruralindiaonline.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">zahra@ruralindiaonline.org</a> with a cc to <a href="mailto:namita@ruralindiaonline.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">namita@ruralindiaonline.org</a>

The pilgrims’ progress

Related stories

A rain-scented walk in Sivagangai

Living on ravaged land

Biswas and the bamboos on his bike

Recycling energy, Godda style

Bhadels of Goa

Pookadai: still throbbing with morning life

Koli Kadlas

Malnourishment high among children of migrants: study

Wheels of the rural Indian West

Living Under a Red Cloud in Bellary

Vedla – earrings of the Maher community

Dreaming of water, drowning in debt

Kali: the dancer and his dreams

Farmer's diet worse than a convict's

In Yavatmal, life goes on

Suicides are about the living, not the dead

Death of a carpenter

Hoisa Shigmo!

Women farmers: weaving a life in Anantapur

Defiant in Dhinkia

Spice and all that's nice

Kerala's Green Army

The ‘jugaad’ not-a-mobile

Health as someone else's wealth

Calibrating in a Kudumbashree assembly unit