01The Swami under the banyan
No one knows where Swami Samarth came from. His devotees hold him to be Dattatreya himself, following Shripad Shrivallabh and Nrusimha Saraswati of the Guru Charitra, and he is said to have told them he had come from the Kardali forest near Srisailam. He arrived in Akkalkot, a small princely state, in 1856, and the raja and the townspeople became his disciples. He sat mostly under a banyan, the vatavriksha, spoke little and often in riddles, and was seen by many at once. He took samadhi in Chaitra of 1878, on 30 April by the usual reckoning.
02The places of Akkalkot
Pilgrims go to the Vatavriksha Math, built around the banyan where he sat, and to his samadhi math in the house of his disciple Cholappa, where he left the body. The annadan, free meals, run all day. Swami Samarth’s followers have since founded maths across Maharashtra and Karnataka, and the names of his disciples, among them Balappa Maharaj and Shri Bhagwat, are honoured beside his. Guru Purnima and his punyatithi in Chaitra are the great days.
The life of this place
- 1856Swami Samarth arrives in Akkalkot.
- 30 April 1878Swami Samarth takes samadhi at Akkalkot.
Akkalkot is about 40 km from Solapur. The Vatavriksha Math and the samadhi math are a short walk apart.
