This article explores the development of a sacred landscape in the major Marathi bhakti tradition, whose poetry and hagiographical stories reveal a strong consciousness of bhakti in North India while turning a relatively blind eye to the South. This cultural geographical orientation is surprising in light of Maharashtra’s geopolitical integration into the Deccan Plateau for much of the second millennium. By examining this history alongside fragmentary information that the Vārkarī tradition preserves about their southern neighbours in poetry and hagiographies—especially the exceptional story of the saint Bhānudās retrieving a Viṭṭhal statue from a southern king—I highlight the conspicuous lack of Vārkarī attention to the South. I conclude by considering possible factors that led to this reality and what implications these may have for envisioning the geographic spread of bhakti through western India.
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