Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 4.djvu/296

LINGAYAT It is worthy of note that, according to some writers, Basava is supposed to have come within the influence of the Syrian Christians. The idea was started by Mr. C. P.Brown, whose essay on the Jangams * is the classic on this subject. Mr. A. C. Burnell quotes the remarkable fact from Cosmos that, in the sixth century, there was a Persian Bishop at Kalliāna near Udupi. And it is presumed by Surgeon-Major W. R. Cornish, the writer of the Madras Census Report, 1871, that Kalliāna is identical with Kalyān, where Basava was prime minister six centuries later. This is clearly wrong, for Udupi is on the west coast 30 miles north of Mangalore, whereas Kalyān, the Chalukyan capital, is in the heart of the Deccan, 350 miles away over the western ghauts. There was another Calyaun or Kaliāna close to Udupi on the coast, as shown by some of the older maps. But it is well known that Western India was at this time tenanted by large settlements of Persians or Manichæans, and recent discoveries tend to show that these people were Christians. It seems, therefore, to be quite possible that the discussions, which preceded Basava's revolt, were tinged with some Christian colouring, derived from the followers of the Syrian school. Mr. Burnell even thinks that all the modern philosophical schools of India owe much to the same source. The Lingāyat faith appears to have spread very rapidly after Basava's death, which may be placed in the year 1168, and Rice says that, according to tradition, within sixty years of the founder's death it was embraced from Ulavi near Goa to Sholāpur, and from Balehalli to Sivaganga. The disappearance of the Chalukyan dynasty is in itself evidence of the rising power of the