When it is sung
Sung at the aarti of Vitthal-Rukmini temples throughout the year and by the Varkari pilgrims on the walk to Pandharpur; at Ashadhi Ekadashi in June or July and Kartiki Ekadashi in November, the two great days of the Vitthal calendar; and at home on Ekadashi. It follows the abhangas of Tukaram and Dnyaneshwar in the Varkari bhajan.
Full text, with meaning
Each line of the verse, with its romanisation beneath and what the verse says after it.
Dhrupad (the refrain)
येई हो विठ्ठले माझे माउली ये।
Yei ho Vitthale majhe mauli ye
निढळावरी कर ठेवुनि वाट मी पाहें॥ धृ॥
Nidhalavari kar thevuni vaat mi pahe
Meaning
Come, Vitthal, my mother, come. With a hand held to my forehead I am watching the road for you. The gesture in the second line — palm shading the eyes against the sun, looking down a long road — is the whole aarti. Mauli, mother, is what Varkaris call Vitthal, a male god.
Verse 1
आल्या गेल्या हातीं धाडी निरोप।
Aalya gelya hati dhadi nirop
पंढरपुरीं आहे माझा मायबाप॥ १॥
Pandharpuri aahe majha maaybaap
Meaning
With everyone who comes and goes I send a message: my mother and father is in Pandharpur. Maaybaap is one word — mother-father — and it is singular, because Vitthal is both.
Verse 2
पिवळा पीतांबर कैसा गगनीं झळकला।
Pivala pitambar kaisa gagani jhalakla
गरुडावरि बैसोनि माझा कैवारी आला॥ २॥
Garudavari baisoni majha kaivari aala
Meaning
How the yellow silk flashed across the sky — seated on Garuda, my protector has come. The only verse in which he arrives; the waiting of the refrain is answered for two lines and then resumes.
Verse 3
विठोबाचें राज्य आम्हां नित्य दिपवाळी।
Vithobache rajya aamha nitya Dipavali
विष्णुदास नामा जीवेंभावें ओवाळी॥ ३॥
Vishnudas Nama jivebhave ovali
Meaning
Under Vithoba’s rule every day is Diwali for us. Vishnudas Nama waves the lamp with his whole life and heart. The signature names the poet, and the line before it is the reason Varkaris sing on the road: they are already home.
Verse 4
असो नसो भाव आम्हां तुझिया ठायां।
Aso naso bhaav aamha tujhiya thaya
कृपादृष्टी पाहें माझ्या पंढरीराया॥ ४॥
Kripadrishti pahe majhya Pandhariraya
Meaning
Whether or not we have devotion towards you, look on us with kindness, my king of Pandhari. The last verse admits the singer may not even feel what the aarti claims — and asks anyway. It is one of the most honest lines in Marathi devotional verse.
About this aarti
The Vitthal of Pandharpur is the god of the Varkari tradition, and the tradition is defined by walking: every year in Ashadha, hundreds of thousands walk from Dehu and Alandi to Pandharpur singing abhangas. This aarti is sung when they arrive, and in every Vitthal temple on every other day. It is short enough that the crowd carries it without a leader.
Its subject is not the god but the wait for him. Other aartis describe a deity standing in front of the singer; this one describes an empty road and a hand raised against the sun. Even the one verse where he appears — yellow silk, Garuda — is a flash, and the refrain goes straight back to waiting. Devotion here is patience.
The poet signs himself Vishnudas Nama. The name is used by more than one Marathi saint-poet in the Namdev lineage, and the aarti is usually dated to the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries; it is traditional and long out of any copyright.
The fourth verse is what makes Varkaris love the text. Aso naso bhaav — whether or not the feeling is there — is an admission that devotion cannot be manufactured on demand, followed immediately by the request for grace regardless. Most prayers claim to feel more than they do; this one claims less.
A note on the text
The text follows the printed Marathi aarti collection cited below, from the scanned copy on the Internet Archive; scanning errors have been corrected against the same copy (the scan runs विठ्ठल and माझे together and drops a vowel sign in ठायां). That printing gives the Vishnudas Nama signature as the third verse and the aso naso verse as the fourth; many households sing them the other way round, so that the poet’s signature closes the aarti, and several add a further verse. Both orders are genuine.
Sources
These texts are in the public domain. The verse is reproduced from the cited source; the English meaning and the background notes on this page are original writing.