At Dehu on the bank of the Indrayani river near Pune stands the shrine of Sant Tukaram, the great seventeenth-century saint-poet of Maharashtra, whose soul-stirring abhangs — devotional songs to Vitthal of Pandharpur — are among the treasures of Marathi literature and the very heart of the Varkari tradition.
Born and living at Dehu, Tukaram sang of pure devotion and the equality of all before God, and tradition holds that at the end of his life he ascended bodily to Vaikuntha from this place. The Gatha Mandir enshrines his sacred verses, and each year his palkhi sets out from Dehu to join the great pilgrimage to Pandharpur. Dehu is a beloved holy place of Maharashtra, revered as the home of Sant Tukaram.
