By Damodarlila dasa, Maharashtra Padayatra leader
On April 27, 2022, the Maharashtra Padayatra reached the village of Apegaon, the birthplace of the most-renowned thirteenth-century yogi, Saint Dnyaneshwar, about 12km east of Paithan. It’s all the mercy of Guru and Gauranga that we reached Apegaon. We had not heard of it and were about to go by a different route, but some Beed congregation devotees encouraged us to take this path from Paithan and while walking someone told us about Apegaon.
As it is the place of a saint the villagers have much reverence for other saints and we were welcomed and escorted to the birthplace where there is a beautiful Dnyaneshwar Maharaja temple located alongside the Godavari River. We had darshan of Saint Dnyaneshwar’s samadhi and performed sankirtan for his pleasure as well as book distribution. Thirty devotees and many villagers joined us in the sankirtan and we all honoured prasadam together. The padayatris also took a holy dip in the Godavari and were then invited to stay under the shelter of Maharaja in the Dnyaneshwar math.
The All-India Padayatra came to Paithan twice but we never visited Apegaon and the Maharashtra padayatris were grateful to have been directed to the village of one of the founders of the Warkari-Bhakti tradition.
