"The deity of Vtthal at Pandarpur is the rallying point of the Bhagwat-panthis in Maharashtra

In fact the very name Bhagwat Dharma means Dharma of Bhagwan Buddha.

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It should there be remembered that Bhagwa is the pali name of the Buddha in the Buddhist scriptures and Bhagwan is its vernacular equivalent.

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It is well known that Tukaram, the great Saint of the Bhagwat Dharma describes the Vitthal as Buddha when he says that the name of the 9th Incarnation who is standing here before me on bricks is Buddha.

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The word Vitthal is made up of two words Vit+Thal

Vit means brick and Thal is a Pali word meaning Sthal or seat

It will thus be clear that the meaning of the word Vitthal is one whose seat is 'Vit' or bricks.

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As the word 'Thal' is a pali word we have reason to say that this deity of Vitthal must have come into existence at a time when pali was in vogue

This takes us to the reign of Asoka who is said to have constructed about eighty-four thousand temples of the Buddha.

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And the temple of Vitthal in Pandharapur is one such temple."

-A. R. Kulkarni in 'Buddha, The Trimurthi and Modern Hinduism'.

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