A Brief Cautionary Note: Calling Wittoba

a Crucified Savior Reveals Ignorance of that God, His

Cult, and His Myth

Ronald V. Huggins

Wittoba/Vithoba

Common Assertions: (1) Wittoba (2) of the Telingonese was (3)

crucified (4) in 552 B.C.

These assertions come mainly from Kersey Graves’s, The World's Sixteen Crucified
Saviors (1876), and have been mindlessly copied by a great host of Graves plagiarizers
ever since.

The Facts: (1) Wittoba. One of the difficulties in seeing the problem with
Graves’s assertions about Wittoba is that nobody spells that deity’s name that way
anymore (except, of course, Graves’s plagiarizers1). Modern writers with real
knowledge of this deity spell it Vithoba, Vitthal, or Vitthalla. Only those with no
independent knowledge of this deity still spell the name Wittoba. An
experiment that dramatically demonstrates this visually is to do a Google Image search
first for “Wittoba” and then for “Vithoba.”

(2) of the Telingonese. Graves spells this two ways, “Bilingonese”

and “Telingonese.”2 Of the two spellings Telingonese is closest to being correct,
referring to Telinga, another name for the Telugu language, or to Andhra Pradesh,
the region where Telugu it is principally spoken. However Wittoba/Vithoba worship
is not centered in Andhra Pradesh where Telugu is spoken, but in Maharashtra where
Marathi is spoken. Wittoba/Vithoba has his temple there in the city of
Pandhurpur. When authors associate Wittoba with Bilingonese or Telingonese they are
giving away their dependence on Graves. Plagiarizers beware!

(3) crucified. Nothing like that at all in the Wittoba/Vithoba story.

(4) in 552 B.C. Not only is there nothing like that in the Wittoba story, but the
worship of Wittoba/Vithoba cannot be shown to have existed prior to the 12th or
13th century CE.

The real Wittoba/Vithoba Story. The Wittoba/Vithoba legend is a local

variation of the Krishna story. A young man named Pundalik, previously negligent
of his duty regarding his aging parents, has a change of heart and transforms himself
into the ideal attentive son. Krishna sees this, is pleased, and comes to Pundalik.
When Krishna arrives, Pundalik, just off to attend to some need of his elderly
parents, tells Krishna he must wait and tosses him a brick to wait upon. When
Pundalik returns, Krishna offers him a boon, and Pundalik asks only that Krishna
always remain. And so, as the story goes, Krishna (now called Vithoba) continues
to stand in his Temple on the brick Pundalik gave him down to the present day.

Any who would like to pursue the subject of the real Wittoba/Vithoba further will
be helped by D. B. Mokashi, Palki: An Indian Pilgrimage (trans. Philip C. Engblom;
introductory essays by Philip C. Engblom and Eleanor Zelliot; Albany, NY: State
University of New York Press, 1987).
__________
1
Direct or indirect plagiarizers.
2
Kersey Graves, The World’s Sixteen Crucified Saviors (4th ed. rev. and enl.; Boston:
Colby and Rich, 1876), 29, 108.