Basava & Lingayats : A classic example of India's diversity
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There is a major opinion that Basaveshwara or Basava is the founder
of Lingayat sect . Most of the scholars specially fromKarnataka strongly assert this opinion. Jagadguru Mate Mahadevi, Kumarswamiji, Basavaraj K.R. were important among them.
Kumarswamiji has stated "As Buddha founded Buddhism, and Christ
founded Christianity so also Basaveshwara is 'supposed to have founded Veerashaivism. Lingayatism is the faith professed and followed by the Karnatak Veerashaivas, Basava was the founder ofthis faith and Vachan Shaatras are the scriptures that embody the principles of the Lingayatism.
As regards the foundation of this religion Bhandarkar, hasstated, that, the foundation of this sect is generally attributed to Basava.
In this connection Nilakantha Sastri has remarkedthat the other development in Saivism was growth of Viva-Saivismor the Lingayat cult in Karnataka and Telugu Country. Basava, the prime minister of Kalachuri Bijjala, King at Kalyani (1156) isusually regarded as the founder of the sect.
There are only two mantras usually repeated by theVeerashaivas, one is the mantra of Shambhu, the,great god Shiva, and the other is of Basava, the second Shambhu. So Basava'splace, at least so far as Veerashaivas are concerned, is next only to the god.
Basava has endeared himself to the Veerashaivas as no Acharya has done. The reason is clear, for it is' to him that they owe their religion. It is not uncommon to find among the Veerashaiva people who rise with the name of Basava on their lips and go to bed with the name of their lips. They usually addresshim as Basavanna, where "anna" is a term of endearment. Their favourite Basava is Shiva and Shiva is Basava. Easava is the most common of the proper names found among Veerashaivas.If the Veerashaiva religion were there even before Basava,then there would be no necessity on the part of! Basava to revolt against the Varnashramic faith. It would have been enough for him to become a convert to the Veerashaiva religion land he would have lived contentedly in that fold.
The Lingayat sect: Why Hindu and why not Hindu?
The Lingayats emerged as a reactionary force against Hinduism in the twelfth century. While it rejected most of the broad Hindu traditions, it also assimilated aspects of it, making the demand for a separate religious status a rather complicated affair.
The Lingayats emerged as a reactionary force against Hinduism in the twelfth century.
Hinduism being an amorphous religion has seen branches of sub-traditions and oppositional traditions since time immemorial. The Lingayats too emerged as a reactionary force against Hinduism in the twelfth century. While it rejected most of the broad Hindu traditions, it also assimilated aspects of it, making the demand for a separate religious status a rather complicated affair.
However, the issue of the Lingayats is further complicated by the fact that underneath the socio-cultural demand for a separate religion is a burning political struggle for votes. Speaking about the gradual politicisation of the Lingayat agitation in last few decades, historian Manu Devadevan says “the movement took off in the early twentieth century. In the late nineteenth century when the first census took place, most of the communities in India started identifying themselves as homogenous groups. So to a large extent, it was a cultural movement then. You don’t find anything explicitly political there. That happens only after the 1980s.”
The community currently forms 17 per cent of Karnataka’s population .
How are they considered separate from the Hindu fold?
The emergence of the Lingayat sect can be located within the larger trend of Bhakti movements that had swept across South India from the 8th century AD onwards. The Bhakti tradition was a social reform movement that developed around Hindu Gods and Goddesses but split away from the Hindu fold by offering a path to spirituality regardless of their caste and creed. In a way, they were movements that took birth within Hinduism but strove to rectify what the followers saw as the unjust practices within the tradition. In that sense, none of the Bhakti movements could acquire the status of separate religion in itself but chose to improve the religion within which they were born.
However, the case of the Lingayats was different. While they also fell into the category of a social reform movement within Hinduism, they made some radical departures from the traditional Bhakti paradigm. “While the conventional Bhakti movements were marginally, vaguely and emotionally critical of the existing Brahmanical Hindu system, Lingayatism challenged it to its roots, and made good its challenge by becoming a highly structured movement, striving for the institutionalisation of the same or similar values professed by the Bhakti movements in general,” writes Ishwaran.
“The Lingayat Bhakti movement in Karnataka assumes the form of a cult in itself. From very early times, the Lingayat status was hereditary in nature. This is something that did not happen within the Bhakti movements elsewhere in South India, which is why they are demanding a separate religion status,” says Devadevan. Therefore, Basavanna’s movement did not just uproot the Hindu cultural practices but also broke away from the other Bhakti movements by forming an institutionalised order for themselves.
How are they considered part of the Hindu fold?
What complicates the issue, however, is that while Lingayatism breaks away from the larger Hindu fabric in significant ways, it also assimilates large portions of it, thereby making their identity difficult to define. The one aspect that strengthens its association with Hinduism is the relationship the cult shares with Veerashaivism. While it is popularly believed that Lingayatism and Veerashaivism are one and the same, historical evidence suggests that they are not.
Veerashaivism is also a Shaiva sect within Hinduism and is predominantly located in Karnataka. “Veerashaivism emerges in the sixteenth century and the followers claim that the philosophers of the twelfth-thirteenth centuries to be their forebearers. They claim that Basavanna was not the founder of the Lingayat tradition, but rather a reformer of an already existing religious tradition which they call Veerashaivism,” says Devadevan.
However, evidence also suggests that Lingayatism departs from Veerashaivism in significant ways. The Veerashaivas accept the Vedic texts and Hindu practices such as caste and gender discrimination. Basavanna, on the other hand, did not just oppose these but also offered an alternative model for them. The Veerashaivas claim mythical origins from the Shivalingam, which is similar in thought to the origin theories of Brahmanism. Basavanna, on the contrary, opposed all Brahmanical roots. However, the debate surrounding whether Basavanna founded the Lingayat sect or simply modified the already existing Veerashaivism sect makes it difficult to discern to what extent they can be considered separate from the Hindu traditional framework.
Further, the complications also arise from the fact that Lingayatism, while rejecting large portions of the Hindu traditional practices, does assimilate aspects of it, just like it absorbs aspects of other contemporary religious traditions like Jainism and Vaishnavism. “ These are influenced by the Upanishads, Jain and Vaishnava traditions. They have drawn from Vedic traditions,” says Devadevan. The close associations that the Lingayat followers share with Hinduism, both sociologically and historically, make it a complicated case of to be or not be Hindu.
Source :. Adrija Roychoudhary ; Speaking of Basava by K. Ishwaran
Good initiative.
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