Viṭhōbā of Paṁḍharapūra

Truth is that Viṭhṭhal is not to be found in the Vedas, Upanishads, Shastras, Sutras, Shrutis, Epics or Puranas. Attempts have been made in the past to disallow the worship of Viṭhṭhal; the best known probably is the one during the Peshwa reign, which was thwarted by Nana Phadnavis. Viṭhṭhal’s saint devotees themselves look at him not as a part of the usual Vedic pantheon. Though they stress upon the Viṭhṭhal - Kṛṣṇa identity, yet they find it is not ‘as simple as that’ : he is not ‘one of the twenty four’ (twenty four incarnations of Viṣṇu) and ‘cannot be counted among the one thousand’ (Viṭhṭhal is not one of the thousand names of Viṣṇu). As Namdev puts it “Cōvisāṁ vēgaḷēṁ sahastrāṁ āgaḷēṁ, nirguṇāṁ nirāḷēṁ śuddhabuddha. Vēdāṁ mauna paḍē śrutīṁsī kāṁnaḍēṁ, varṇitāṁ kuvāḍēṁ purāṇāṁsī” (Neither from the twenty four, nor from the thousand, its qualities are beyond reasoning. Vedas fall silent, shrutis are confounded, puranas are puzzled, when it comes to him.) Namdev Gatha 1027.3-4. “Cōvisāṁvēgaḷā tayācā khēḷu gē gāya” (His play is different from that of the twenty four) Eknath Gatha 507.1. If he is not ‘one of the twenty four’ and ‘cannot be counted among the one thousand’, then who is he ? The Varkari literature has no answer to that question. Yet the saints feel him to be very familiar. This theological conundrum again is a pointer to the enigmatic origin of Viṭhṭhal.