{"id":11918,"date":"2023-06-12T03:58:30","date_gmt":"2023-06-11T22:28:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=11918"},"modified":"2025-03-30T06:14:50","modified_gmt":"2025-03-30T00:44:50","slug":"what-is-the-palkhi-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/what-is-the-palkhi-festival\/","title":{"rendered":"What is the Palkhi festival?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><strong>About Palkhi festival:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Palkhi is a <strong>1000 \u2014 year old tradition<\/strong> which was <strong>started by some saints of Maharashtra <\/strong>(India) and is still <strong>continued by their followers called varkaris<\/strong> (people who follow a vari, a fundamental ritual).<\/li>\n<li>It is an <strong>annual pilgrimage (yatra) to Pandharpur<\/strong> &#8211; the <strong>seat of the Hindu god Vithoba in Maharashtra<\/strong>, in honour of the deity.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Journey<\/strong>:\n<ul>\n<li>They <strong>walk with palkhis (chariots<\/strong>) <strong>carrying paduka (sandals) of various saints<\/strong> &#8211; most notably <strong>Dnyaneshwar and Tukaram<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Dnyaneshwar&#8217;s palakhi leaves from Alandi, while Tukaram&#8217;s begins at Dehu, both in Pune<\/strong> district of Maharashtra.<\/li>\n<li>The <strong>Palkhi starts in the month of Jyeshth (June), and the whole process lasts a total of 22 days.\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Every year on the eleventh day<\/strong> of the first half of the month of Ashadh, the <strong>Palkhi reaches Pandharpur.\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Upon reaching Pandharpur on Ashadi Ekadashi, these devotees take a holy dip in the sacred Chandrabhaga River\/Bhima River<\/strong> before proceeding to visit the Vitthal temple.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>History<\/strong>:\n<ul>\n<li>Every saint, right from <strong>Sant Dnyaneshwar to Sant Tukaram, was following the Vari tradition.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>In the year 1685, Narayan Baba, the youngest son of Tukaram<\/strong> was a man of innovative spirit and <strong>decided to bring about a change in the dindi-wari tradition by introducing the Palkhi,<\/strong> which is a sign of social respect.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li><strong>He put the silver padukas (footsteps) of Tukaram in the Palkhi<\/strong> and <strong>proceeded with his dindi to Alandi where he put the padukas of Dnyaneshwar in the same Palkhi.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>This tradition of twin Palkhis <strong>went on every year, but in 1830 there were some disputes in the family<\/strong> of Tukaram, concerned with rights and privileges.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Following this,<\/strong> some thoughtful persons decided to break-up <strong>the tradition of twin Palkhis and organise here after, two separate Palkhis<\/strong> Tukaram Palkhi from Dehu (Pune) and the Dnyaneshwar Palkhi from Alandi (Pune).<\/li>\n<li><strong>From that time till date, both the Palkhis meet in Pune for a brief halt and then diverge at Hadapsar to meet again at Wakhri<\/strong>, a village nearby to Pandharpur.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Who are Varkaris?<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>They are a <strong>Hindu religious sect that workship Vithoba (or Vitthal), an incarnation of Krishna.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Q1) Who are Varkaris?<\/h3>\n<p>Varkaris are a Hindu religious sect that worship Vithoba (or Vitthal), an incarnation of Krishna.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source:\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/cities\/pune\/g20-delegates-get-a-view-from-pavilion-8659663\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>G20 delegates get a view from pavilion<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Palkhi is a 1000 \u2014 year old tradition, an annual pilgrimage (yatra) to Pandharpur &#8211; the seat of the Hindu god Vithoba in Maharashtra, in honour of the deity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":11919,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11918","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11918\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}