History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v3.c41.s8.7

v3.c41.s8.7

We must advert here to the peculiar doctrines of this new Vira Śaiva or valiant Śaivite sect which enabled it to drive out Jainism. In the first place Basava adopted Ahimsā as his main doctrine and thus satisfied the popular trend of opinion which was now entirely in favour of nonslaughter, and removed one vulnerable tenet of Hinduism which Jains successfully attacked. He also denied the Varnāśrama Dharma, another vulnerable point of Hinduism. He denied that Brahmins had any special sanctity and affirmed that every one was entitled to attain the highest goal. The Vaishnavas of the South could not give up the ancient varna system of the Hindus and stuck to it. But Basava boldly came forward to abandon caste and in his days intermixture between Brahmins and even Chāndālas took place. He even denied Sanyāsa and Tapa and thus going beyond the Jains scored a point over them and every one, he preached, must live by his own toil and never beg, not even the Jangamas, their priests. Basava is thus almost the first Indian thinker who preached the dignity of labour and stopped all beggary. He alone preached that only Kāyaka (work) led to Kailāsa. He insisted on a strictly moral life for all men with perhaps greater success than Jainism and Buddhism; for the Lingayats as a community eschew all frivolity and generally lead a highly moral life. Lastly, he stuck to the old Linga worship of the common people and did not thus disturb their god. Of course Basava had to infuse a higher esoteric meaning into the symbol and to insist upon his followers wearing constantly upon their person the sacred Linga. He had done away with the Brahmanic thread and he substituted for the same a silver thread with Linga attached to it. Having denied the Brahmins and the caste system, Basava had naturally recourse to the language of the people in which to preach to them. Basava cared not to copy the Jains in carrying on disputations with orthodox pandits in the Sanskrit language; but spoke pithy words of advice and doctrine in the Kanarese which have become the scripture of the Lingayats. For this reason also, Basava's sect secured victory over the Jains and even over the orthodox in the view of the common people. To the present day, among the agriculturists and the trading population in Karnātaka, the Lingayats are in preponderance from his time.