Mauli - Pandharpur Yatra Day 1

After hearing from the Gyaneshwar Maharaj Wari group at our housing society about Pandharpur and the celebration, we planned our trip to Pandharpur on one of a long week ends in Feb. Pandharpur is around 220km from Pune and 360km from Mumbai. We started Friday morning, took the Pune-Sholapur Highway, the 4 lane road is too good and till around an hour before Pandharpur. You take a deviation from the highway to drive an hour more to reach Pandharpur, this road too is maintained very well. 

A Wari on the way to Pandharpur

Paduka(foot print) of the saint

Statue of Lord Vittal at Tukarambaba Ashram

As we neared Pandharpur, we were blessed with may waris on the way, and we were happy to have planned our trip the day before Ekadashi. Just few minutes before Pandharpur town is Saint Tukarambaba Ashram, a huge status of Lord Vittal catches your eye, showing its all about Mauli, the mother, the caring mother, Vithoba, Lord Vitthala for the next 2 days of your trip. We reached our hotel, freshened up and left for the visit to Vitthala Rukamai Temple. The temple town is full of devotees, especially if you plan near Ekadashi. The road to the temple has shops selling, idols of Vittal Rukmai, Haldi Kumkum, Brass and copperwears, they really make great souvenirs. We didn't have prior booking for temple darshan, so all we could go for was the Mukh Darshan, were you get the glimpse of the Lord from a distance, charan sparsh darshan takes you to the foot of the idol, were you can touch the idol, but the queue for the charan sparsh darshan takes more than 6 to 7 hours, so we had to settle with Mukh Darshan, which took us half an hour. We were told at the temple information centre there is prior online booking for darshan, which offers you with VIP entry directly. Like in any other temples were Vitthala(Lord Krishna) and Rukumani idols stand next to each other, here there are two separate shrines in the temple complex with the idols of Vitthala and Rukumai

The rare entrance of the temple with the view of shikara of Rukumai temple at left and Vitthala temple in the right

Shops selling idols of Vitthala Rukumai

After the visit to the temple, we had our dinner at Durvankar Dining Hall and called for the day. Durvankar is opposite to MTDC near Pandharpur railway station, ambience is no fancy, but they serve very tasty authentic Maharashtrian Thali.

About Pandharpur: Pandharpur is a pilgrime place in Maharashtra. About the place, tales goes back to the loyal son Pundalik, who after realising his mistake of ill treating his parents, serves his parents with great devotion that lord Vitthala come to earth and knocks his doors to give him darshan. Pundalik who was serving his parents throws a stone at the door asking the lord to stand on the brick to avoid the wet muddy rainy floor. He visit the lord after serving his parents, begs for pardon for making him wait and requests him to stay back on earth to bless his devotees. The lord stays back and a temple was built at the place, so is the lord depicted standing on a brick. A temple for Rukumai, Lord Vishu's wife in this incarnation as Krishna was also built next to Vitthala temple.

To read more about Pandharpur, please visit the complete posts here