The 2026 Pandharpur Wari Set Out From Dehu on 7 July and Alandi on 8 July, and Lakhs of Warkaris Reached the Vitthal Temple for Ashadhi Ekadashi on 25 July

Two palanquins, one carrying the sandals of the 13th-century saint Dnyaneshwar and the other those of the 17th-century saint Tukaram, set out from Alandi and Dehu in Maharashtra’s Pune district in July 2026 on the walk to Pandharpur. The Sant Tukaram Maharaj Sansthan, the trust at Dehu, announced the departure for 7 July and called it the 341st Palkhi Sohala, the 341st edition of the procession. The Alandi palkhi was set to leave on 8 July at about 3 pm, according to the palkhi chief, Advocate Rajendra Umap. The Free Press Journal reported that lakhs (hundreds of thousands) of warkaris, the pilgrims, entered Pune on Thursday 9 July, and the Wari ended on Ashadhi Ekadashi, Saturday 25 July, on the banks of the Chandrabhaga river.

The distance depends on who counts it. The Free Press Journal’s Pune report says pilgrims walk nearly 250 km from Alandi and Dehu to the Vitthal temple. ANI’s report on the final day says over 250 km, and Punekar News says about 250 km.

Two start lines, one road after Pune

The Dehu palkhi left on 7 July and spent its first night at Inamdar Wada, the Sansthan’s schedule says. It stopped at Akurdi on 8 July and halted two days at Nana Peth in Pune, 9 and 10 July. The Alandi palkhi’s two-day Pune halt, also 9 and 10 July, was at the Palkhi Vitthal Temple in Bhavani Peth. The Free Press Journal’s photographs show the Tukaram palkhi at the Nivdung Vitthal Temple in Nana Peth and the Dnyaneshwar palkhi at Bhavani Peth on 9 July, with residents handing out water and food and thousands of police deployed to divert traffic.

From Pune the two processions take different roads to the same place. The Alandi schedule runs through Saswad, Jejuri, Valhe, Lonand, Taradgaon, Phaltan, Barad, Natepute, Malshiras and Velapur. The Dehu schedule goes through Loni Kalbhor, Yavat, Varvand, Baramati, Indapur and Akluj. Each takes a ritual bath in the river Nira on the way, the Alandi palkhi at Lonand on 15 July and the Dehu palkhi on 20 July. Both schedules put the two palkhis at Wakhri, the village just outside Pandharpur, on 23 July, with arrival in Pandharpur on 24 July. The Dehu announcement describes an 18-day foot pilgrimage.

The return was scheduled too. The Alandi palkhi was to leave Pandharpur on 29 July and reach Alandi on 8 August, with a circuit of the town on 9 August. The Dehu palkhi was due back at Dehu on 9 August.

Floodwater in Alandi two days before the start

The Indrayani river flooded Alandi, and on 6 July the Shri Dnyaneshwar Maharaj Sansthan and the Alandi Municipal Council jointly told pilgrims to stop at the nearest safe place, because all four bridges into the town were under water. ETV Bharat reported that the National Disaster Response Force rescued 408 devotees that day, 220 of them from the Dnyaneshwari Temple area. Maharashtra’s Chief Minister said the rescue was carried out with the municipal council, police, fire brigade and disaster agencies. Two days later the Alandi palkhi was scheduled to leave, and by 9 July it was in Pune.

What the palkhis carry

A palkhi is a palanquin. The ones that leave Alandi and Dehu carry padukas (the sacred sandals of the saint), and the processions start at the saints’ samadhis, the shrines where they are held to have entered their final rest. Maharashtra Tourism says the Gatha Mandir at Dehu has more than 4,000 of Tukaram’s abhangas (devotional verses) inscribed on its walls, and that Alandi is where Dnyaneshwar took samadhi.

Dnyaneshwar wrote the Dnyaneshwari, a Marathi commentary on the Bhagavad Gita; the Gita’s commentary tradition has its own article. Tukaram wrote abhangas to Vitthal. Kartikay Khetarpal of Sahapedia writes that Tukaram wore Dnyaneshwar’s padukas on the wari, and that this began the custom of carrying saints’ padukas to Pandharpur. Mumbai Live adds that palkhis of Nivruttinath, Namdev and Eknath also walk to the town. Other bhakti poets have articles of their own on tuput, among them Kabir and Mirabai.

Vitthal, also called Vithoba and Pandurang, is the deity at the end of the road. The temple committee calls Vithoba an incarnation of Vishnu. In the story Khetarpal retells, Vitthal appeared because of the devotion of Pundalik to his parents, and Pundalik had him stand on a brick, which gives the deity his name and his pose.

Who began the walk is not settled

The Samiti’s own page says the exact origin of the dindi tradition “is somewhat unclear”. It lists several theories: that Vitthalpant Kulkarni, the father of Dnyaneshwar, began it, or Dnyaneshwar, or Tukaram, or Tukaram’s youngest son Narayan Maharaj. A dindi is a group of pilgrims who sing, eat and camp together; Khetarpal says one can have 10 to over 500 people.

Two points are documented in more than one place. Punekar News says Narayan Baba, Tukaram’s youngest son, placed the saints’ padukas in a palanquin in 1685, and that a family dispute in Tukaram’s line led to the two separate palkhis in 1830. Khetarpal says Haibatrao Baba Arphalkar, a nobleman and former soldier from Satara district, reshaped the wari in the early 19th century into an organised procession with fixed timetables and a chariot for the palkhi. Both dates come from secondary writing.

The age of the wider tradition is given differently as well. The Samiti says the devotion to Vithoba is unbroken for 700 to 800 years. Khetarpal says seven to eight centuries. Maharashtra’s finance minister described the Wari as a thousand years old in the state budget speech, according to Mumbai Live.

The name has two explanations. The Samiti says Varkari joins “var”, short for vari or pilgrimage, with “kari”, one who does it. Khetarpal writes that wari comes from “vaar”, meaning frequency, for the regular return every year.

The Warkari code and the ringan

The Samiti describes the code that goes with the name: humility and respect for all people regardless of caste, creed or wealth, no alcohol or tobacco, a vegetarian diet, and a rosary of tulsi (basil) beads. On the road the pilgrims keep up chanting of Vitthal’s name, sing abhangas and read the Haripath, a devotional text.

The Dehu schedule lists ringans along the way, some marked circular and some standing. Khetarpal describes the ringan as a ceremonial race between two horses, one of them without a rider. By custom the riderless horse wins, because it is believed that the saint rides it.

The last two days at Wakhri and Pandharpur

The Samiti says the dindis of Dnyaneshwar and Tukaram, with countless others, gather at Santanagar in Wakhri village. On Ashadh Shudha Dashami, the day before Ekadashi, all the dindis join and walk into Pandharpur, where devotees bathe in the Chandrabhaga and walk around the town. The Samiti says the temple stays open 24 hours at this time, and that Ashadhi Ekadashi, also called Devashayani Ekadashi, marks the start of Chaturmas, the holy period when devotees dedicate themselves to worship.

On 25 July 2026 Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis performed the mahapuja, the main worship, at the temple in the early hours with his wife, according to the Free Press Journal. He told reporters, “There is no other celebration in the world like this”, and spoke of queues of more than 25 km. Maharashtra minister Girish Mahajan told ANI the crowd was so large that “all records have been broken”. Neither report gives a headcount. The Chief Minister also presented the Shri Vitthal Nirmal Dindi Award 2026 to the Warkari couple Balasaheb and Prabhavati Mane, and said work on a proposed temple corridor would begin this year.

The Samiti runs three other yatras in the year, at Chaitra, Magh and Kartik. It calls the Kartiki yatra the second most popular. Readers who want another large annual pilgrimage with officially estimated crowds can read about Puri’s Rath Yatra.

Keeping 250 km clean and safe

The Nirmal Wari, or clean pilgrimage, began as a pilot. DNA India reported in 2016 that the Seva Sahyog Foundation had run portable toilets in two villages, Loni Kalbhor and Yavat, the year before, and that the state planned 300 mobile toilets at Dehu, 500 at Alandi and 2,700 at Wakhari, with night halts in 32 villages. The Samiti’s page on the dindi now names cleanliness among the services it calls Seva and Nirmal Dindi.

After the 2026 palkhis left, the Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation said it had cleared its stretch of the route within two hours, with volunteers from 24 organisations. Alandi’s sanitation teams worked overnight, with about 400 workers sent to clear silt and garbage from the ghats after the flood.

The road had losses as well. On 13 July a truck hit a group of pilgrims on the Saswad-Jejuri Road, killing three women and injuring four, according to ANI. The police detained the 70-year-old driver.

The temple, the law and the UNESCO file

A statutory committee runs the temple. The Pandharpur Temples Act, 1973 (Maharashtra Act IX of 1974) abolished the hereditary rights and privileges of the ministrants and priestly classes in the temples of Vitthal and Rukmini and vested them in a committee, as the Act’s long title states on the Samiti’s site.

In 2024 the Maharashtra government set aside Rs 9.9 lakh to prepare a nomination of the Wari for UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, of which Rs 8.85 lakh went to a Mumbai firm, Mumbai Live reported. On 6 February 2025 the Union Culture Minister told the Rajya Sabha that the Centre had received no proposal in the prescribed format for the Pandharichi Vari. The sources checked for this article do not say whether a nomination has since been filed.