Basaveshwara: Religious experience as social reform

Seeking to understand Basaveshwara, the 12th century Veerashaiva saint (1105-1168), must begin as a meditation with a primary focus on religious experience. The social implications of Basavanna’s world emerge from this starting point and help understand the 12th century religious reform movement and its relevance to 21st century concerns. The rejection of worship in temples of static emblems of God (Sthavaralinga) in favour of wearing and thus becoming a moving embodiment (Jangamalinga) was at the heart of the reform movement. This opposition, standing versus moving, sthavara vs jangama, is central to Basaveshwara’s teaching.

In 12th century Karnataka, religious orthodoxy was represented by the dominant Vaishnava Hindus; the mediation of learned priesthood; a religious, and hence, a social hierarchy based on caste and gender distinctions; and the importance of temple worship. All these were rejected by Basaveshwara. The extraordinary body of religious lyrics -- the Vachanas -- is exemplified by this moving Vachana: “The rich will build temples for Shiva/What shall I, a poor man, do?/My legs are the pillars, the body the shrine, the head a cupola of gold/Listen, O Lord of the meeting rivers/Things standing shall fall/But the moving ever shall stay” (Basavanna: 820).

In his poetry, Basaveshwara does not explicitly mention the mythological Shiva. In general, his Shiva is aniconic. Shiva’s name appears less frequently than forms such as Shiva Patha, Shiva Jnana, Shiva Nama, and so on. Basaveshwara’s poetry is about the worshipping subject, not the object of worship. It is poetry that assumes Shiva as principle, not as person; it laments life’s ups and downs, and addresses it all to his God. It describes the inner movements of the speaker’s heart.

Basaveshwara was born into a Shaiva brahmin family in Bagewadi, a well-known agrahara at the time, whose head was Madiraja, Basava’s father. Basaveshwara was raised to follow in his father’s footsteps as a scholar-priest, and went through a period of religious education and ritual instruction. But he soon rebelled, rejecting the sacred thread of the brahmin, and all that it entailed -- his own family and community’s privileges, Brahminical rituals and practices, and the caste and gender hierarchy itself. Basaveshwara then proceeded to Sangama from Bagewadi.

Kudalasangama was a thriving sacred site at the confluence of two rivers, the Krishna and the Malaprabha, and a pilgrimage centre frequented by Shaiva ascetics. The centre’s focal point was a temple dedicated to the God of the confluence of rivers, Shivasangameshwara or Kudalasangamadeva. Basaveshwara encountered here the form of God to whom he was to devote his life and Vachanas. Basaveshwara stayed in Sangama for 12 years. This was a time of ecstatic devotion. In the joy and pain of the bhakti experience, social distinctions dissolved. Basavanna was no longer a brahmin being groomed for his place in a caste-ridden world, no longer even or only a man as his Vachana elaborates: “Look here dear fellow/I wear these men’s clothes only for you/Sometimes I am man, sometimes I am woman/Oh lord of the meeting rivers/I will make wars for you, but I will be your devotees’ bride” (Basavanna: 703).

But something compelled him to leave Kudalasangama. According to legend, Shiva appeared in a dream and told him to go to Mangalavada and find Bijjala. Basavanna was unwilling to leave his Kudalasangamadeva and begged to be relieved of this command. Shiva appeared in a dream the following night and asked him to wait by the stone Nandi at the temple the next day. Shiva is said to have created a miniature linga and personally given it to Basavanna while seated on Nandi’s tongue. This was Basaveshwara’s initiation onto the new path, and the awareness that God would always remain with him in the form of his personal linga. He could now leave Kudalasangama. With it came the growing realisation that one should not neglect the world of the householder, and the everyday tribulations of a working life: work as service to God.

Basaveshwara rose to prominence in Mangalavada under Bijjala, who was first a feudatory of the Chalukyas of Kalyana and later, the first king of the Kalachuri line. The significance of this period in Basaveshwara’s life is that it allowed him to demonstrate, through word and deed, the importance of spiritual practice in daily life. Two ideas are central to his philosophy: Kayaka -- work; and Dasoha -- caring for others. Work as a sacred practice, as part of one’s sadhana, was fundamental. Dasoha meant taking care of the disadvantaged and vulnerable, always.

Basaveshwara’s Vachanas from over 800 years ago help us understand some of the real-world implications of his ideals: the importance of pursuing egalitarian spiritual goals eschewing caste and gender; and that ‘work’, especially to help others, is the pathway to liberation. Read A K Ramanujam’s Speaking of Shiva. It is enlightening.