Khandobaखंडोबा

Khandoba (खंडोबा) is the great warrior-god of the Deccan, worshipped as a folk form of Shiva under the name Mārtaṇḍa Bhairava. Mounted on a white horse, sword in hand, he is the family deity of an enormous range of Maharashtrian communities — farmers, herders, warriors and Brahmins alike — and his hill temple at Jejuri, south-east of Pune, is among the most vivid pilgrimage centres in India. There the god is worshipped with bhandara, turmeric powder, flung in golden clouds over deity and devotees to the cry of “Yelkot Yelkot Jai Malhar”; the town is called Sonyachi Jejuri, Jejuri of gold.

The tradition

Khandoba's central myth tells of the demon brothers Mani and Malla, who oppressed gods and sages until Shiva took form as Mārtaṇḍa Bhairava and rode out against them. The six-day battle ends with the demons' defeat, and its commemoration, Champa Shashthi in the month of Margashirsha, is the god's principal festival. His marriages carry the cult's social meaning: his wives, chief among them Mhalsa, of a merchant lineage, and Banai, a Dhangar shepherdess, bind the god to different communities of the Deccan, each of which can claim him as kin. Sunday is his day, dogs are associated with him, and his devotees historically included Muslims, who honoured him in their own idiom — a breadth typical of the god's cult.

Worship

Jejuri's fortress-like temple crowns a hill climbed by long flights of steps, and its great gatherings — notably on Somvati Amavasya, when the god's palanquin is carried in procession — turn the hillside yellow with turmeric. Khandoba's worship traditionally supported orders of dedicated servants, the Vaghya men and Murali women who sang the god's ballads. Beyond Maharashtra he belongs to a wider Deccan family of horseman-gods: Mailara in Karnataka and Mallanna in the Telugu country are his close counterparts, and together their cults mark one of the great shared traditions of peninsular India.