From Constant Yearning and Casual Bliss to Hurt Sentiments 71
Chapter 3 From Constant Yearning and Casual Bliss to Hurt Sentiments: An Emotional Shift in the Varkari Tradition (India)*
Irina Glushkova
Great poets of Marathi bhakti from the 13th to 17th century are known for their expression of a range of polar emotions, including states of taḷmaḷ (painful yearning) and ānand (gratified bliss), which functioned as high intensity mark ers and were occasionally supplemented by verbal formulae of bodily display. Throughout the essentially creative period of the Varkari tradition these feel ings were aimed at/evoked by the god Viṭṭhal/Viṭhobā/Pāṇḍuraṅg of Pandhar pur, whose spatial remoteness made the urge for him more acute. By the twenty-first century the deity has been raised to the pedestal of ethno-regional pride and has become one of the main symbols of Maharashtra. This social ascent started with the formation in the 1830s of an elaborately patterned collective pilgrimage to Pandharpur. Its theological basis took insti tutional form in 1917 with the establishment of the Vārkarī śikṣaṇ saṃsthā (Varkari School) in Alandi. The public manifestation of Vitthal’s devotees has been recently strengthened by radical groups of new Rāṣṭrīy vārkarī senā (National Varkari Army) claiming to speak on behalf of millions of Varkaris whose “hurt sentiments” they feel called upon to protect.
1 Yearning and Bliss as Explained by Tukaram of the 17th Century
Marathi-speaking people of the state of Maharashtra (Western India) look upon the god Vitthal/Vithoba/Pandurang, a regional form of Krishna, as their tutelary deity. Once a year thousands join orderly structured processions start ing from various locations and combine in a march to his shrine in the sacred town of Pandharpur on the Bhima river. The event is known as vārī, and its
* My thanks go to Dr Lee Schlesinger, a friend and colleague, for editing the English language of this paper and asking many insightful questions in the process.
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004352964_005 72 Glushkova participants are called Varkaris, “doing vari.”1 Believed to antedate the thir teenth century, this religious tradition2 had been ritually unified by the pull of Vitthal’s material image in Pandharpur and emotionally inspired by devotional hymns composed by poets of bhakti, an affective and performative devotional manifestation in Hinduism. By a direct appeal to Vitthal, not requiring priestly mediation, a galaxy of brilliant poets of various social backgrounds, from sophisticated Brahmins like Dnyanehsvar (1271/75–1296) and Eknath (1533– 1599) to low caste professionals like Namdev (1270–1350), a tailor, and Tukaram (1598/1608–1649/50),3 a shopkeeper, eulogized the roughly carved black-col ored stumpy god with arms akimbo as an ethical and aesthetic ideal:
In an exquisite trance He stands on the Brick Arms akimbo Hands on hips
Sweet basil beads Garland His neck A yellow silk garment Girdled around His loins I love His trance His forever stance
Crocodile-shaped rings Gleam at His ears The Kaustubha stone Glows at His throat
1 For a detailed account of pilgrimage relevant for the 1950s, see Deleury Guy Albert, The Cult of Vithoba (Pune: Deccan College Postgraduate and Research Institute, 1960); for the 1990s experience, see Glushkova, Irina, Indiyskoe palomnichestvo: Metafora dvizheniya i dvizhenie metafori [Indian Pilgrimage: The Metaphor of Motion and the Motion of Metaphor] (Moscow: Naychniy mir, 2000). 2 The focus of this paper leaves no place for comments on the master-narrative; otherwise I would have argued that as late as 1870s Varkaris had been still classified as “occasional” visitors to the Vithoba’s shrine in Pandharpur in contrast to “regular” ones visiting the temple for conventional life cycle rituals. See Campbell, James M., “Chapter XIV: Places,” in Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency: Volume XX. Sholapur, ed. James M. Campbell (Bombay: Government Central Press, 1884), 471. 3 These dates are meant to approximately connect each poet with some historical context. Otherwise, dates available for their life-span are discrepant.