Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 4.djvu/269

Rh of the God Siva. This image, which is called the jangama lingam or moveable lingam, to distinguish it from the sthavara or fixed lingam of Hindu temples, is always carried on some part of the body, usually the neck or the left arm, and is placed in the left hand of the deceased when the body is committed to the grave. Men and women, old and young, rich and poor, all alike wear this symbol of their faith, and its loss is regarded as spiritual death, though in practice the loser can, after a few ceremonies, be invested with a new one. They are strict disciplinarians in the matter of food and drink, and no true Lingāyat is permitted to touch meat in any form, or to partake of any kind of liquor. This Puritan simplicity raises them in the social scale, and has resulted in producing a steady law-abiding race, who are conservative of the customs of their forefathers, and have hitherto opposed a fairly unbroken front to the advancing tide of foreign ideas. To this tendency is due the very slow spread of modern education amongst them, while, on the other hand, their isolation from outside influence has without doubt assisted largely in preserving intact their beautiful, highly polished, and powerful language, Canarese.

It is matter of debate whether the Lingāyat religion is an innovation or a revival of the most ancient Saivaite faith, but the story of the so-called founder of the sect, Basava, may with some limitations be accepted as history. The events therein narrated occurred in the latter half of the twelfth century at Kalyān, a city which was then the capital of the Western Chālukyas, and is now included in the province of Bidar in the Nizam's Dominions. It lies about a hundred miles to the west of Hyderabad. The Chālukyas came originally from the north of India, but appeared to the south of the