Vitthala is a regional god who never needed a national theology. His temple at Pandharpur on the Chandrabhaga is the destination of the wari, a walking pilgrimage several centuries old, and the Varkari tradition around him is one of the most consistently anti-hierarchical devotional movements in India: its canon is the abhangs of Jnaneshwar the brahmin, Namdev the tailor, Gora the potter, Sena the barber, Chokhamela the untouchable, and Janabai the maidservant, and they are sung together as one body of work. Chokhamela is the exception that proves the rule — his verses are sung inside the temple and his samadhi sits at the foot of the steps, because in life he was not allowed in. Ambedkar's movement pointed at exactly that. The temple's priestly rights were the subject of a long legal battle that ended in 2014 when the Supreme Court removed the hereditary Badve and Utpat families and put worship in the hands of a state committee, which then appointed women among the priests.