Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 4.djvu/272

LINGAYAT his career is told in the sacred writings of the Lingāyats, of which the principal books are known as the Basava Purāna and the Channabasava Purāna. The former was apparently finished during the fourteenth century, and the latter was not written till 1585. The accounts are, therefore, entirely traditionary, and, as might have been expected, are full of miraculous occurrences, which mar their historical value. Tie Jain version of the story is given in the Bijjalarāyacharitra, and differs in many particulars. The main acts accepted by Lingāyat tradition are given by Dr. Fleet in the Epigraphia Indica [Vol. V, p. 239] from which the following account is extracted. To a certain Madiraja and his wife Madalāmbika pious Saivas of the Brāhman caste, and residents of a place called Bagevādi, which is usually supposed to be the sub-divisional town of that name in the Bijapur district, there was born a son who, being an incarnation of Siva's bull, Nandi, sent to earth to revive the declining Saiva rites, was named Basava. This word is the Canarese equivalent for a bull, an animal sacred to Siva. When the usual time of investiture arrived, Basava, then eight years of age, having mean while acquired much knowledge of the Siva scriptures, refused to be invested with the sacred Brāhmanical thread, declaring himself a special worshipper of Siva, and stating that he had come to destroy the distinctions of caste. This refusal, coupled with his singular wisdom and piety, attracted the notice of his uncle Baladēva, prime minister of the Kalachurya king Bijjala, who had come to be present at the ceremony; and Baladēva gave him his daughter, Gangādevi or Gangāmba, in marriage. The Brāhmans, however, began to persecute Basava on account of the novel practices propounded by him, and he consequently left his native town and went to a