Vithoba Temple

The Vithoba Temple, formally the Shri Vitthal-Rukmini Mandir, stands at Pandharpur in southern Maharashtra on the Chandrabhaga River. It is the chief shrine of Vithoba, a standing form of Vishnu, worshipped with his consort Rakhumai. A small shrine existed here by 1189, and Hoysala inscriptions of 1237 and 1273 to 1277 record grants and the building of the temple, traditionally credited to King Vishnuvardhana on the counsel of the devotee Pundalik.

From the 1200s the shrine became the heart of the Warkari bhakti movement, whose poet-saints sang in Marathi. Pilgrim bands called dindi march to Pandharpur for the Aashadhi and Kartiki Ekadashi festivals.

Much of the structure dates to the 1600s in the later Deccan style. When Afzal Khan moved against the temple in the mid-1600s its priests hid the original image, so the central idol survived.