many pilgrimage places, and conse-
quently, their status and their income
have declined. Many pilgrimage places
have been developed as sites for reli-
gious tourism, and hotels and facilities
that have been built at these places have
rendered pilgrims less dependent on
their pandas for accommodation. At the
same time, recent years have seen a gen-
eral decline in the performance of ritual
acts, except for the most important, par-
ticularly those connected with death.
Pandava
(“sons of Pandu”) A collective name
for the five brothers who are the
protagonists of the Mahabharata:
Yudhishthira, Arjuna, Bhima, Nakula,
and Sahadeva. Although they are
named after king Pandu, none are actu-
ally his son, since Pandu has been
cursed to die the moment he holds his
wife in amorous embrace. Rather, they
are magically conceived through a
mantragiven by the sage Durvasasto
Kunti, Pandu’s senior wife. The mantra
gives the woman who recites it the
power to call down any god and to have,
by that god, a son equal in power to him-
self. Kunti uses this mantra to bear
Yudhishthira by the god Dharma,
Arjuna by the storm-god Indra, and
Bhima by the wind-god Vayu. With
Pandu’s blessing Kunti also teaches the
mantra to her co-wife Madri, who med-
itates on the Ashvins(divine twins who
are the physicians to the gods), and
delivers the twins Nakula and Sahadeva.
The basic theme of the Mahabharata
is the story of the struggle for royal
power between the Pandavas and
their cousins, the Kauravas, which
culminates in a war that destroys the
entire family.Pandharpur
City and sacred site (tirtha) on the
Bhima River in the state of
Maharashtra, about 185 miles east and
south of Bombay. Pandharpur is best
known for the temple to the god
Vithoba, and has been a center of wor-
shipfor the Varkari Panthreligious
community for at least seven hundred
years. Varkari rituals center around a
twice-yearly pilgrimage to Pandharpur,PandharpurVarkari Panth pilgrims en route to Pandharpur.