Movement

Vārkarī Tradition

The Marathi devotional movement of the god Viṭhobā of Pandharpur, carried by its poet-saints and its great annual pilgrimage.

Also called Varkari sampradaya, the pilgrims of Pandharpur

A movement of The bhakti movement

Introduction

The Vārkarī tradition is the devotional movement of Maharashtra, in western India, centred on the god Viṭhobā (Viṭṭhal), a form of Krishna, at his temple in Pandharpur. A vārkarī is “one who makes the pilgrimage”: every year, for the festival of Āṣāḍhī Ekādaśī, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims walk to Pandharpur, carrying the sandals of the poet-saints Jñāneśvar from Alandi and Tukārām from Dehu, singing as they go.

Its teaching is devotion open to all, regardless of caste or sex. Its saints included a tailor, a potter, a maidservant and a grocer as well as Brahmins, and they sang in Marathi, the language of the people, rather than Sanskrit. They prized the repetition of God’s name, the singing of abhaṅgas (devotional songs) in congregation, and a life of honest work and compassion over ritual or renunciation.

Vārkarī devotion has a philosophical side as well: Jñāneśvar, its first great saint, joined devotion to a non-dual understanding of reality, in which the devotee, God and the world are one play of consciousness.

History

Historical

Jñāneśvar, in the late thirteenth century, wrote the Jñāneśvarī, a Marathi commentary on the Bhagavad Gītā, and abhaṅgas that the tradition still sings. His contemporary Nāmdev, a tailor, carried Vārkarī devotion as far as the Punjab; some of his songs are in the Sikh scripture.

In the sixteenth century Eknāth, a Brahmin of Paithan, edited the Jñāneśvarī and wrote widely in Marathi, defying caste rules in his own life. In the seventeenth century Tukārām, a grain merchant of the Śūdra caste from Dehu, became the most beloved of the poet-saints; thousands of abhaṅgas are attributed to him.

The great annual pilgrimage (vārī) took its present form in the nineteenth century. The tradition has shaped the language, literature and social conscience of Maharashtra, and modern reformers and writers have drawn on its egalitarian devotion.

Vārkarī singers also formed a long tradition of kīrtan, devotional storytelling in song, which remains a popular art in Maharashtra, and the tradition’s saints include women such as Janābāī, a maidservant in Nāmdev’s household, and Bahiṇābāī.

1290Jñāneśvar completes the Jñāneśvarī
13th–14th c.Nāmdev carries Vārkarī devotion north
16th c.Eknāth edits the Jñāneśvarī
17th c.Tukārām’s abhaṅgas
19th c.The annual pilgrimage takes its present form

Major thinkers

Key concepts

Important texts

Convergence and divergence

Resemblance and difference, given equal room. Each note is marked with the kind of statement it makes.

Areas of convergence

Bhakti, with Sikhism
Historical
Songs attributed to Nāmdev are included in the Guru Granth Sahib, and Vārkarī and Sikh devotion share the repetition of the divine name and the rejection of caste in worship.

Areas of divergence

Nonduality, with Dvaita Vedānta
Scholarship
Jñāneśvar joins devotion to a non-dual vision in which devotee and God are one; Dvaita holds that the devotee and God are eternally distinct, and that this distinction is the ground of devotion.

Cite this entry

Chicago (bibliography): “Vārkarī Tradition.” Tradition. The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society. Last modified November 7, 2026. https://www.unitiveknowledge.org/library/traditions/varkari.
Chicago (note): “Vārkarī Tradition,” tradition, The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society, last modified November 7, 2026, https://www.unitiveknowledge.org/library/traditions/varkari.
MLA: “Vārkarī Tradition.” The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society, 7 Nov. 2026, www.unitiveknowledge.org/library/traditions/varkari.
BibTeX: @misc{traditions-varkari, title = {{Vārkarī Tradition}}, howpublished = {The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society}, note = {Tradition. Last modified November 7, 2026}, year = {2026}, url = {https://www.unitiveknowledge.org/library/traditions/varkari} }

Reading lists

The Poet-Saints of Maharashtra