The Rise of a Folk God: Vitthal of Pandharpur.

• Author: Keune, Jon
• Position: Book review

The Rise of a Folk God: Vitthal of Pandharpur. By RAMCHANDRA CHINTAMAN DHERE. Translated by Anne Feldhaus. South Asia Research Series. Oxford: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2010. Pp. xvii + 350. $74.

The study of the major Marathi bhakti tradition and its main deity, Vitthal (affectionately known as Vithoba), has long been hampered by a dearth of critical historical research. R. C. Dhere's Srivitthal: Ek Mahasamanvay (literally Lord Vighal: A Great Synthesis/Convergence) significantly advanced Marathi scholarship on Vitthal when it first appeared in 1984. Anne Feldhaus has done a great service by bringing Dhere's extensive and novel research to the English-reading academic world. The culmination of several uninterrupted years of Dhere's research on oral historical, epigraphic, iconographic, and Marathi and Sanskrit textual sources, this book is the gold standard for scholarship on Vitthal.

The Rise of a Folk God is an intensively edited translation, as Feldhaus condensed the 423-page Marathi text and strove to make it accessible to readers beyond the western Indian region where Vitthal is famous. Feldhaus includes a brief introduction to the broader religious landscape but contributes most substantially by inserting helpful subheadings throughout the text and providing more bibliographically detailed endnotes than the original. Feldhaus also moderates somewhat the tone of Dhere's writing, which nonetheless will strike many English readers as conspicuously pious. Dhere routinely proclaims his own faith in Vitthal, both out of authorial self-expression and as a hedge against Marathi readers who may find his arguments offensively critical. As Feldhaus states in her introduction, religious studies and its methods are not commonly encountered in Marathi scholarship, which helps to explain Dhere's sometimes simplistic theoretical analysis and his very cautious tone when presenting critical points. For the sake of brevity. Feldhaus understandably omits Dhere's lengthier affirmations of faith, long quotations from Marathi and Sanskrit texts, passionate rebuttals of his Marathi critics, and appendices such as a summary of Christian missionaries' Marathi publications on Vitthal and his devotees. Few English readers will miss these items, and those who would are likely in a position to consult the original Marathi text.

Most of the book's fifteen chapters originated as independent articles. The first half of the book coheres rather well, examining textual...