As the Varkaris tell it
Pandharpur, Maharashtra · 3 min read
Pundalik had not always been a good son. When he was young he married, and his wife ruled the house, and his old father and mother were shouted at in their own kitchen and given what was left.
When the family set out on pilgrimage to Kashi, Pundalik and his wife rode the horse, and the old people walked behind in the dust.
On the way they stopped at the ashram of a sage called Kukkuta. In the night Pundalik woke and saw three women in filthy rags come in, sweep the ashram and wash its floors, and go out again shining and beautiful. He followed them and asked who they were.
"We are Ganga and Yamuna and Saraswati," they said. "Every pilgrim who bathes in us leaves his sins in our water, and we come here to wash them off by serving this old man, who has served his parents all his life. And you, who make your parents walk, are the dirtiest of all."
Pundalik went back and fell at his father's feet. From that day he gave his parents the horse, and the best food, and his nights. He brought them home to Pandharpur on the Bhima river and served them there, and did nothing else.
Far away in Dwarka, Krishna heard of it, and wanted to see a son like that. So he came to Pandharpur, one rainy season, and knocked at Pundalik's door.
Pundalik was sitting on the floor with his father's feet in his lap, pressing them. He looked up and saw who it was. He did not get up.
"I am busy," he said. "My father is not asleep yet."
"I have come a long way to see you," said Krishna.
"Then you will not mind waiting a little longer." Pundalik looked round the room for something, and found a brick, and tossed it out of the door into the mud. "Stand on that, so your feet stay clean. I will come when he is asleep."
Krishna stood on the brick. He put his hands on his hips. He waited.
It was a long night. The old man was restless, and then the mother wanted water, and then the father woke again. When at last both were asleep and Pundalik came out, the god was still there on the brick, in the same place, smiling.
"You have waited," said Pundalik, and only then fell at his feet. "Forgive me. What do you want?"
"Nothing," said Krishna. "I came to see you. Ask for something."
"Then stay," said Pundalik. "Stay here, just like that, for everyone who comes."
And he did. The black stone god of Pandharpur stands on his brick with his hands on his hips, waiting, and his name is Vitthal, which the people say means the one who stood on a brick. Pundalik's own shrine is down on the river bank, in front of him.
Every year at the start of the rains the Varkaris walk to him. They come from Alandi with the sandals of Dnyaneshwar in a silver palanquin, and from Dehu with the sandals of Tukaram, singing the saints' songs on the road for three weeks, and arrive at Pandharpur on the eleventh day of Ashadha, hundreds of thousands of them, to see the god who waited.