Virasaivism, caste, revolution, etc.

• Author: Zydenbos, Robert J.
• Position: Examination of the medieval and modern Karnataka and the Virasaiva movement

Western understanding of what Virasaivism is and of its place in Indian religious history and modern South Indian society is rather limited, in spite of its socio-religious relevance in southern India. In recent years it has become better known to a wider public in the English-speaking world through translated selections of vacanas, the typical, often fascinating short prose-poems in the Kannada language through which Virasaiva religious thinkers spread their ideas from the twelfth century onwards.(1) The Virasaivas are also known for their practice of wearing a small, personal linga as a representation of God on their body, usually in a small metal container on a cord or chain around the neck, which also serves as an object of worship, so that they have no need of temples as the majority of Hindus do. There is also a widespread notion that Virasaivism opposes the caste system and gender discrimination.

Lengthier studies of Virasaivism by scholars in the West are very rare, hence the publication of J. P. Schouten's doctoral dissertation(2) demands the attention of Indologists, religious scholars, and social scientists. After a short introductory chapter, in which the author gives an outline of Virasaiva history and teachings, he deals in four large chapters with social issues, on which the Virasaivas have taken a remarkable stand in Indian history: caste, labor and property, the position of women, and education. The book ends with a short evaluation of Virasaivism, a twenty-two-page bibliography, an index of technical terms, and an index of Virasaiva personalities who are mentioned in the book.

While on the one hand we should welcome such a new study, we must regret that the representation of Virasaivism and the socio-religious environment in which it developed has some fundamental flaws. While Schouten has obviously devoted a good deal of time and energy to the work, it sets out from certain preconceptions about Indian society and about the nature of Virasaivism and of religion in general which lead to a faulty interpretation of facts. The author's knowledge of the general religious background in which Virasaivism arose is limited and has led to some untenable conclusions. The appearance of such a study in print suggests that some fundamental matters concerning the study of southwest India, of Hinduism, and of Indian society are in need of a review, and I will attempt to give one in the following pages.

The title of the book explicitly sums up the author's interests as well as his findings. His bird's-eye view of Virasaivism is as follows: Orthodox Hinduism is a religion which supported a rigid system of social discrimination based on a division of labor, as a result of which the highest caste, the brahmins, arrogated to themselves social, financial and religiously ritual privileges. Higher education was withheld from other castes and from all women. In the twelfth century, a brahmin named Basava began the Virasaiva movement in what is now northern Karnataka, and he declared that all humans are equals, irrespective of sex or social background. Belief in the rules of ritual purity and pollution, which had been an instrument of social discrimination, was abolished, as was temple worship, which was another means of brahminical cultural oppression. Similarly, the classical study of Sanskrit, another brahmin monopoly, was discarded in favor of the use of Kannada, the common language of the people. But already very soon, already under the man who succeeded Basava as leader of the Virasaiva community, the community consolidated itself within the larger society around it, and under the influence of brahminical culture lost its revolutionary idealism. By the fifteenth century, the movement had thoroughly degenerated, but during the last one hundred years there has been a revival of the original values and a return to the original teachings of Basava, which we see, for instance, in Virasaiva activities in the field of education. In upholding the dignity of all labor, cultivating a work ethic, abolishing ritualism, and stressing the equality of all people, Virasaivism differs from orthodox Hinduism and resembles Christianity,(3) particularly Calvinism.

Research in the social sciences in India without constant recourse to Indology tends to be superficial to the point of being meaningless. Here we must credit the author that he has used a two-pronged approach in his study of Virasaivism: he has used data from colonial records and recent research in the social sciences, but has also used Virasaiva literature as an invaluable source of information. However, the literature which he quotes does not support some of his conclusions. While writing about the social aspects of Virasaivism, Schouten has largely disregarded its theological and mystical background and has replaced it with a modern myth of partly Indian, partly Western origin. One cannot escape from the impression that he wanted, perhaps unconsciously, to see parallels between Virasaivism and modern protestant Christianity where they do not really exist.

A few questions with which we will deal more closely are the position of Basava in Virasaiva history and religion; the religious precedents of Virasaivism in Karnataka, and the relation between Kannada and Sanskrit writings; the significance of caste, both in Basava's time and today; Virasaiva ontology, and its significance for work in the world.

Basava is the founder of Virasaivism, says Schouten.(4) This comes as a surprise when there is a consensus among scholars in India that Basava was a social organizer and to some extent a reformer of an already existing tradition. All the elements of Virasaivism existed before Basava: the Sanskrit agamas to which the vacanakaras and later authors repeatedly refer for scriptural support; the sixty-three puratanaru, i.e., the nayanmars of the Tamil land, are referred to by Virasaiva authors as Saiva forerunners who rejected birth as a criterion for one's status in the varna hierarchy, just as we find this same rejection in Jainism and Buddhism, as well as in agamas and other older Hindu texts; also the use of a portable, personal linga, the istalinga, existed previously.

Serious historical research about Virasaiva Sanskrit literature has still hardly begun; hence it is somewhat premature to use the Sanskrit material for establishing the antiquity of the words virasaiva and lingayata. But also in Kannada literature we find evidence that these terms predate Basava. In an important article about the twelfth-century writer Kondaguli Kesiraja,(5) first published in 1981, M. Chidananda Murthy has pointed out that the information we have about this author refutes several preconceptions about Virasaivism which are commonly held by Virasaivas and non-Virasaivas alike. Some of Chidananda Murthy's conclusions, based on Kesiraja's writings, must be noted here. Virasaiva literature did not begin with vacanas, nor did the earliest Virasaiva literature mean a rejection of the older language of the Jaina court poets (Old Kannada) in favor of a newer stage in the development of the language (Middle Kannada), which was closer to the language of the common people (Kesiraja wrote metrical works in Old Kannada, with an admixture of Middle Kannada word forms). The terms virasaiva and lingayata were already in use in Kesiraja's time. There already were Saivas who disregarded rules of caste purity and "untouchability" in social intercourse. The practice of worshipping the istalinga on the palm of one's hand already existed.(6) And there is epigraphical evidence that Kesiraja lived half a century before Basava.

These conclusions force us to rethink the position of Basava in Virasaiva history. Evidently, Virasaivism is not Basava's creation. However important Basava was, he was only one among numerous sivasaranas and vacanakaras, devotees of Siva and writers of vacanas, all of whom individually contributed to the further growth of the religion. M. R. Srinivasa Murthy, one of the pioneers of the modern study of vacanas, writes that these authors had as much liberty to develop and present their own ideas and theories as the authors of the upanisads and the schools of Vedanta had.(7) Basava was neither a Jesus nor a Calvin, and we must realize that his sometimes beautiful emotional outpourings cannot be taken as the final word on what Virasaivism is or should be. Only very recently have fundamentalist reformers on the fringe of Virasaiva society tried to give Basava such a status.(8) There is very little doctrine in the writings of Basava, and his literarily often highly impressive vacanas are tinged with "a definite almost fanatical monotheism and a certain intolerant evangelism."(9) It is only against the existing cultural and intellectual background of his time that Basava could organize a community of believers. The depth of his religious fervor and social involvement made him the rallying point of that community; but its religious teachings are clearly older.

Like any other text, the vacanas of Basava and of other vacanakaras must be read in the light of the context in which they were written and in the light of their authors' entire oeuvre. Basava criticized the general brahminhood of his time, but this does not mean that he had broken entirely with his ancestral heritage; and if a vacanakara expressed disdain for bookish scriptural learning and praised personal mystical experience, this did not mean a total rejection of the Saiva scriptural tradition. Schouten is rather inconsistent in his analysis of vacanas: when Cannabasava quotes an agama, it signifies a return to "traditional values,"(10) but when Basava does so, he concocts a reason for preserving the image of Basava as a revolutionary.(11) Schouten's problem apparently arises from his preconceptions that those who use Sanskrit are conservatives by definition and that Basava was a leader whose word is Virasaivism's law. Such...