Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 4.djvu/286

LINGAYAT colours the chief actors in the drama. The closing years of the Western Chalukyan kingdom are given to us by the hand of an actor who was on the same stage, and, if the birth of the Lingāyat creed is still obscured in the mist of the past, the figures of those who witnessed it stand out with surprising clearness. It has been already stated that one of the principles of the religion is a disregard of caste distinctions. The prevailing races were Dravidian, and it is an accepted fact that the theory of caste as propounded by Manu is altogether foreign to Dravidian ideas. Historians cannot tell us how long the process of grafting the caste system on to the Dravidian tree lasted, but it is clear that, when Basava appeared, the united growth was well established. Brāhmans were acknowledged as the leaders in religious matters, and, as the secular is closely interwoven with the religious in all eastern countries, the priestly class was gradually usurping to itself a position of general control. But, as was the case in Europe during the sixteenth century, a movement was on foot to replace the authority of the priests by something more in accordance with the growing intelligence of the laity. And, as in Europe, the reformers were found amongst the priests themselves. Luther and Erasmus were monks, who had been trained to support the very system of priest- craft, which they afterwards demolished. Basava and Rāmayya, as already stated, were Saivaite Brāhmans, from whom has sprung a race of free thinkers, who affect the disregard of caste and many of the ceremonial observances created by the Brāhman priesthood. The comparison may even be carried further. Luther was an iconoclast, who worked upon men's passions, while Erasmus was a philosopher, who addressed himself to their intellects. Basava, according to the traditionary