Panduranga

 Panduranga, known as Vithoba in Prakrit Marathi, has been described, praised, venerated most beautifully by Marathi saints. Today let us look at his description by the great Adi Shankaracharya.

At Kedarnath, one of the most beautiful sights, besides the Kedarnath Temple itself and the Bheemshila protecting it beyond all rational explanations, is the Adi Shankaracharya Samadhi sthan. There is a lovely statue of this young monk who literally rejuvenated the moribund Vaidic "sanatana dharma".

Shankaracharya has written a beautiful stotra, a hymn so to say, praising and venerating Vitthala, that is, Panduranga. In his attempt to quail the in-fighting between the two major sects, that is, the Shaivaites and the Vaishnvaites, the arch philosopher of Advaita, calls Panduranga "parabramha lingam", and yet continues to praise him as an avatar of, a manifestation of Vishnu.

Actually, that is the real core of Vithoba's existence. The great Marathi saint, Dnyaneshwar, too, repeatedly presents him thus. The idol, mostly adorned with the Vishnurup, has a crown which has the typical Shiva iconography. Incidentally, in a way, in the Marathi folklore, he absorbs the form of the 'local' deity as well.

The great Shankaracharya praises Panduranga's divine beauty and grace, his captivating smile (which always lingers in his every pic which I get to see every morning as the Headmaster of Aai's school sends it as a token appreciation of the prize instituted in Aai's memory), his Krishna like bluish dark brilliance, his splendour comparable with the autumn moon.

There are lovely references to the jewels that add to the Lord's beauty. Why, the great Acharya refers to the beautiful flute the Lord plays, and whose lyrical melodious sweetness is repeatedly referred to in the Marathi bhakti poetry.  

More than that, Pandurang is "anandkand", that is, the root cause of bliss. The stotra does refer to the Pundarik legend. The core of the stotra, however, is the description of the Lord as "tribhangi", that is, the guide beyond the three doshas, of the three stages of dhyata, dheya, etc. 

Shankaracharya's Pandurang, however, is radically relevant because he explains the idol putting his hands on his waist. The great Acharya argues that this position signifies that the ocean of the world and its multiple ebbs and flows are merely up to the waist, and hence easily vincible. Thus this Lord, the supreme abode of Kaivalya, is the god of gods in this stotra that the Acharya wrote for his ailing mother. 

The lovely lilt of the melodious Sanskrit in the stotra adds to the divine praise in the sholkas which are simply unforgettable. Thus, Pandurang, the elder brother of Lord Venkatash at Tirupati, absolutely comes alive in this symphony of a stotra!

Pratima@In the Pandurang Stotra, we meet the "sagun", that is the physical form, of the bramhan, that leads us towards the "nirgun", that is, the idea(s), the ideational realities!