Sawta Maharaj the ideal of spiritual emotion and devotion !

कांदा मुळा भाजी । अवघी विठाई माझी ॥ लसण मिरची कोथंबिरी । अवघा झाला माझा हरि ॥

स्वकर्मात व्हावे रत । मोक्ष मिळे हातो हात ॥ सावत्याने केला मळा । विठ्ठल देखियला डोळा ॥

Performing all worldly duties amidst remembering Deity Vitthal is equivalent to Saint Sawta Maharaj’s ‘Onion, radish, vegetables is Vitthal, my mother’.

Let us offer obeisance with spiritual emotion to the idol of Saint Sawta Maharaj at the spot where He renounced His body at Aran, Madha Taluka, Solapur District

Saint Sawta Maharaj (Saint Sawta Mali) lived from 1250 to 1295. He is a Saint following the path of worldly life who preached that ‘performing duties and actions is true service unto God’. He is a great Saint famous in the Varkari sect. For Him Deity Vitthal was the supreme deity of worship. He never visited Pandharpur. Pandurang Himself came to meet him.

His family business was growing flowers, fruit, vegetables and crops. In one of His devotional songs He mentions ‘ours is a community of gardeners and we grow crops in the garden’. In worldly life when performing duties and actions each one has a right to remain devoted unto God in thought, word and deed. He says it is an easy and effortless path to reach Vaikunth (abode of Shri Vishnu) without facing hardships. He has performed the task of imparting religious education and preaching devotion unto God with dedication and as a vowed religious observance (vrat). His personality clearly distinguishes the balance between harmony and detachment. At present only 37 of His devotional songs are available.