Basavanna

The teaching

Direct, personal, casteless devotion to Shiva. The ishta-linga (a small linga worn on a thread around the neck) makes the deity portable and the worship private. Kayaka (work) is itself worship; dasoha (sharing) is its expression. Basavanna led a 12th-century social-religious revolution that included women (Akka Mahadevi) and lower-caste poets (Allama Prabhu, Madivala Machideva) as equal sharanas.

Major works

• Vachanas — short Kannada free-verse devotional sayings (over 1,300 attributed to Basavanna himself)
• Anubhava Mantapa — the assembly hall at Kalyana where sharanas debated; the recorded proceedings (Shunya Sampadane) are the canon

What he changed

• Anubhava Mantapa — perhaps the world's first public, casteless, gender-equal democratic religious assembly (12th century)
• Vachana literature — replaced Sanskrit with Kannada as the language of devotional philosophy, opening it to ordinary readers
• Eight-fold practice (Ashtavarana) and six-stage path (Shatsthala) — a complete soteriology grounded in personal life

Living lineage today

The Lingayat community of Karnataka, North Karnataka, and parts of Maharashtra/Telangana continues today. The Basava Samiti and many Veerashaiva mathas (Suttur, Murugharajendra, Siddhaganga) are active.

Where to read more

• A.K. Ramanujan · "Speaking of Siva" (Penguin Classics) — best English entry to Vachana literature
• H. Thipperudraswamy · "The Veerasaiva Saints" (Karnataka University Press)
• M.M. Kalburgi · "Marga" volumes — Vachana scholarship
• Basava Samiti, Bangalore — Kannada and English editions