śrī viṭhṭhala stotram (śrīgusāīṃ jī aṣṭakam)

An ashtaka of eight verses with a ninth for its fruit, and in spite of its title it is not addressed to the Vitthal of Pandharpur. Its subject is Shri Vitthalanatha, Gusainji, the younger son of Vallabhacharya, and every verse closes on the same line: in this world Shri Vitthala is victorious. What the verses praise is a teacher's work rather than a god's. He rises out of the ocean that was Vallabha; he is the sun whose renown is for undoing the doctrine of maya; he is called a further descent of Krishna; his heart-lotus rests wholly at Giridhara's feet; he established the lineage, made the Navaratna plain in the land of Vraja, and brought into the open the devotion born of grace that gives the Pushtimarga its name. The colophon names its author as Raghunathaji, son of Devakinandana.