The God Who Stood on a Brick

Awhile back I wrote about chanting Vitthale! in a post titled; Allowing . . . Accepting with Love. Since then several people have been curious about the meaning of Vitthale so I decided to write a lil' post of explanation. The chant is Vitthale! Vitthale! Vitthale! Vitthale! Jai Jai Vitthale! Jai Jai Vitthale! It's a chant of devotion to Vitthal, aka Lord Vithoba who is a manifestation of the Hindu deity Vishnu. The names Vitthale and Vithoba are derived from the word "vit" which means brick. So the name means "God who stood on a brick". The short story of how this name came to be is as follows;

A young man, named Pundalik, who had treated his parents very badly for quite some time had a vision of the sacred river goddesses washing their sin stained clothing through prayer in the hermitage of the sage Kukkutswami. (Their clothing was stained with the sins of the pilgrims who bathed in their waters seeking redemption.) In the vision the river goddesses told him that his sins were the most terrible of all the pilgrims. He was devastated by this and so he was inspired to repent his bad behavior and he became an incredibly devout son. He changed so completely that it came to the attention of Lord Vishnu who was very pleased with him. So pleased, in fact, that he decided to pay him a visit. When Vishnu arrived at his door, Pundalik was tending to his parents. He knew Vishnu was there to see him but he did not want to disturb his parents so he threw a brick outside for Vishnu to stand on while he finished taking care of his beloved parents. The street was very dirty so the brick gave Vishnu a clean place to stand while he waited. When Pundalik finally came out to greet Vishnu he asked the Lord to stay on Earth and bless his many devotees with his presence. Vishnu agreed to stay back as Vithoba, the God who stood on a brick.

You can read a more detailed version of this story by following this link to Wikipedia or you can click on the photo of Lord Vitthal above.