Page:History of India Vol 2.djvu/413

 THE HOYSALAS AND YADAVAS 359 neighbours, and in the course of a few years the greater part of his kingdom had been absorbed by the Yadavas of Devagiri on the west, and the Hoysalas of Dorasa- mudra on the south. The end of the Chalukya dynasty of Kalyana may be dated in 1190 A. D., after which time the rajas of the line ranked merely as petty chiefs. The brief intrusive reign of Bijjala, the usurping rebel, was marked by a religious revolution effected by a revival of the cult of Siva and the foundation of a new sect, the Vira Saivas, or Lingayats, which is a power to this day. Bijjala was a Jain. According to one version of the legend, he wantonly blinded two holy men of the Lingayat sect, and was assassinated in con- sequence in the year 1167 A. D. The blood of the saints proved, as usual, to be the seed of the Church, which had been founded by Basava, the Brahman minister of Bijjala. In other legends the tale is told quite differ- ently. There is, however, no doubt that the rise of the Lingayats dates from the time of Bijjala. The members of the sect, who are especially numerous in the Kanarese Districts, worship Siva in his phallic form, reject the authority of the Vedas, and cherish an intense aversion to Brahmans, notwithstanding the fact that the founder of their religion was himself a Brahman. The growth of this new sect, which secured numer- ous adherents among the trading classes, up to that time the main strength of both Buddhism and Jainism,