Lingayatism

“ The Lingāyats have been aptly described as a peaceable race of Hindu Puritans. Their religion is a simple one. They acknowledge only one God, Siva, and reject the other two persons of the Hindu Triad. They reverence the Vedas, but disregard the later commentaries on which the Brāhmans rely. Their faith purports to be the primitive Hindu faith, cleared of all priestly mysticism. They deny the supremacy of Brāhmans, and pretend to be free from caste distinctions, though at the present day caste is in fact observed amongst them. ”

“ Even the lowest castes are to be raised to the level of all others by the investiture of the lingam, and all Lingadhāris, or wearers of the divine symbol, are to eat together, to intermarry, and to live at unity.
But social distinctions inevitably asserted themselves later. As the Lingāyats, or Panchamsālis as they styled themselves, increased in importance, number and wealth, elaborate forms of worship and ceremony were introduced, rules of conduct were framed, and a religious system was devised, on which the influence of the rival Brāhman aristocracy can be freely traced. ”

“ After the house is completed, the ceremony of Graha Pravēsam takes place. With all Lingāyat ceremonies the most important feature is the worship of the Jangam, and in this instance the house is sprinkled with water, in which the Jangam's feet have been washed. Jangam's friends and relatives are then entertained and fed in the house.
Theoretically, any one may become a Lingāyat by virtue of investiture with the lingam. But in practice very few outsiders are admitted. The priests do not proselytise. The elders of the community sometimes persuade a relative or friend to join the fold. ”

“ It is remarkable that an exceptionally severe and puritanical sect should choose this emblem as its object of worship, but, as already observed, the lingam is merely a symbol of the creative force and its worship is not accomplished by indecent rites. [561] They hold that true Lingâyats are not liable to be defiled by births or deaths, that they cannot be injured by sorcery and that when they die their souls do not transmigrate but go straight to Śiva. No prayers for the dead are needed. ”

“ Their indifference to all such prescriptive customs relating to defilement and cleanliness has given rise to a Hindu proverb which says, ‘There is no river for a Lingāyat,’ meaning that the members of the sect do not recognise, at all events on many occasions, the virtues and merits of ablutions.” The same author also states that they entirely reject the doctrine of migration of souls, and that, in consequence of their peculiar views on this point, they have no tithis or anniversary festivals to commemorate the dead. A Lingāyat is no sooner buried than he is forgotten. ”

“ In doctrine the Lingâyats remain faithful to their original tenets and do not worship any god or goddess except Śiva in the form of the Lingam, though they show respect to Gaṇeśa, and other deities as also to the founder of their sect. But in social matters it is agreed by all observers that they show a tendency to reintroduce caste and to minimize the differences separating them from more orthodox sects. According to Basava's teaching all members of the community both men and women are equal. ”

“ It must have occurred after the foundation of the Lingayat creed in the latter half of the twelfth century, as many of the Badagas are Lingayats by faith, and sometime before the end of the sixteenth century, since in 1602 the Catholic priests from the west coast found them settled on the south of the plateau, and observing much the same relations with the Todas as subsist to this day. The present state of our knowledge does not enable us to fix more nearly the date of the migration. ”

“ Pandārams wear the linga on their bodies in one of the usual modes, are priests to others professing the Lingāyat religion, and are fed by them on funeral and other ceremonial occasions. At the same time, it must be added that they are — more especially the begging sections — very lax as regards their food and drink. This characteristic distinguishes them from the more orthodox Lingāyats. Moreover, Lingāyats remarry their widows, whereas the Pandārams, as a caste, will not.
"Pandārams speak Tamil. They are of two classes, the married and celibate. ”

“ In a note on the Linga Balijas of the North Arcot district, Mr. H. A. Stuart writes35 that “Linga Balija appears rather to be the name of the followers of a religious faith than of a distinct caste, for the Linga Balijas state that their caste contains eleven sub-divisions, each with a separate occupation, viz., Jangam (priests) , Reddi (cultivators) , Gāndla (oil-mongers) , and the like. Almost all the Linga Balijas of North Arcot are traders, who speak Canarese and are immigrants from Mysore, in which their gurus (religious preceptors) live, and whither they still refer their caste disputes. ”

“ They are—
“Udayas are Lingāyats in religion, and carry the Sivalinga—the Siva image—tied round their necks. They claim to be superior to all the other Badagas, and [73] are regarded as such. They are priests to all the Badagas of the Lingāyat class, and are strict vegetarians. They do not intermarry with any of the other high caste Badaga sects. Udaya was, and is the title assumed by the Maisūr Rājas, and those Badagas, by being thus designated as a caste, claim superior blood in their veins.” The Lingāyat Badagas are commonly called Lingakutti. “Next in rank come the Hāruvas. ”

“ Breaches of the peace are also described as not infrequent, resulting from the interference of one Linga Balija Chetti with matters relating to the district of another. Their authority has long since disappeared, and is only a matter of tradition. Every Linga Balija wears a Siva lingam, usually encased in a silver casket (or gold casket set with precious stones) , and suspended from the neck, but the very poor place theirs in a cloth, and sometimes tie it to their arm. ”

“ The recognised head-quarters of the Lingāyats in the Bellary district is Ujjini, a village in the south of the Kudligi tāluk on the borders of Mysore. There are five head-quarters of the community in different parts of India. In each there is what is called a Simhasanadhīpati. In the first period of creation, Īswara or Siva is supposed to have appeared in five different forms, emanating from his five faces, and the five Lingāyat centres are representative of these five forms. ”

“ This caste affects the Lingait or Shaivya [181] form of Hinduism, contains a variety of sub-families, speaks a debased dialect of modern Canarese, and still retains, in the fine climate of the Neilgherries, the dark skin, the degraded expression of countenance, and the puny figure, that characterise the low caste native of Southern India. They consider the wild men of the hills as magicians, and have subjected themselves to the Todas, in a social as well as a religious point of view, by paying a tax for permission to occupy their lands. ”

“ Her followers (and revenues) were growing rapidly, increased chiefly by the democratic instinct which, even in India, revolts against social prestige. But it would seem that when such a sect grows and {47} spreads, the old separatist ideas reassert themselves, and the sect breaks up into smaller endogamous communities, whose status depends on the original position of the members in Hinduism. The most remarkable instance of this kind is furnished by the great Lingayat caste of Bombay, which contains over two and a half millions of members. ”

“ This representation of the union of the sexes, typifies the divine sacti, or active energy in union, the procreative generative power seen throughout nature; the earth being the primitive pudendum or yoni, which is fecundated by the solar heat, the sun—the primeval Lingam, to whose vivifying rays, men and animals, plants and the fruits of the earth owe their being and continued existence. Thus, according to the Hindus, the Linga is God and God is the Linga ”

“ Many Jangams are priests to Sūdras who are not Lingāyats, others are merely religious beggars, and others of them go in for trade.” In the Census Report, 1891, it is further recorded that “the full name is Jangama Lingāyat, meaning those who always worship a moveable lingam, in contradistinction to the Sthāvara (immoveable) lingam of the temples. [451] Only two of the sub-divisions returned are numerically important, Ganāyata and Sthāvara. ”

“ The Conjeeveram Sēniyans are Lingayats, but are not so strict as the Canarese Lingāyats. Jangams are respected, but rank after their own stone lingams. In the observance of death rites, a staunch Lingāyat should not bathe, and must partake of the food offered to the corpse. ”

“ There is a proverb that the Siva Brāhman (temple priest) eats well, whereas the Vīramushti hurts himself with the sword, and suffers much. The Vīramushtis are said, in former days, to have performed a ceremony called pāvadam. When an orthodox Lingāyat was insulted, he would swallow his lingam, and lie flat on the ground in front of the house of the offender, who had to collect some Lingāyats, and send for a Vīramushti. ”

“ Amongst all the rudest tribes of India, and even throughout Rajpootana, and with the strict Jain sects who abhor Lingam worship, these still shew their parent root by devoting some fifteen days annually, after the harvests are gathered in, to the most gross form of Lingam worship, in which a complete naked image of a man, called ‘Elajee,’ is built of clay and decorated with wreaths of flowers, &c., and placed in prominent situations. ”

“ The whole Lingāyat community is dealt with by Mr. C. P. Brown under the name Jangam, and his essay speaks of Vishesha and Sāmānya Jangams. This is incorrect, for no Sāmānya Vīra Saiva can be a Jangam, and all Jangams are Vishesha Vīra Saivas. The Jangams are mostly literate, and the members of the Banjig or trader class are frequently literate. The other classes of men, and the women of all classes are practically illiterate. Canarese is the common language of Lingāyats, and it is usually preserved as a house language where Canarese is not the language of the locality. ”

“ These divisions, of which the full significance is not clearly conveyed by the titles, may perhaps be expanded with advantage by the addition to each of the alternatives already explained, viz., Panchamsālis, non-Panchamsālis with ashtavarna rites, and others, including the unclean castes attached to the Lingāyat community by reason of performing its menial services, e.g., Dhors, Chalvādis, etc. It is the modern practice to deny to these low castes the right to style themselves Lingāyats at all. ”

“ Many wealthy traders may be found amongst the above class, and in the town of Kampli there is a Lingāyat guru who is held in great esteem, and yet is the owner of two shops, the business of which he personally conducts. It is even whispered that the head of the Ujjini Mutt is not averse to increasing his income by a little discreet usury. The majority of Lingāyats in Bellary are tenant-farmers, or self-cultivating pattadārs. It is said to be uncommon to find a Lingāyat daily labourer in the Bombay Presidency — they are mostly landholders and cultivators or petty traders. ”

“ If Basava and Madirāja, herein mentioned, are really the heroes of the Lingāyats, it is clear that they were not father and son, as stated in the Lingāyat writings. But it must be borne in mind that this is the only inscription yet deciphered which contains any allusion whatever to Basava, and the statement that “he caused to bloom the water-lily that was the affection of the five hundred Brāhmans of Manigavalli,” is directly opposed to the theory that he broke away from the Brāhman fold, and set up a religion, of which one of the main features is a disregard of Brāhman supremacy. ”

“ I am very partial to this tribe of Lingga Dayaks; they have always shown so unmistakable a preference for the English—faithful under every temptation, and ready at a moment’s warning to back them up with a force of a thousand men. ”

“ They carry on the person a stone linga (phallus) in a silver casket. The founder of the sect is said to have been Basava, a Brahman prime minister of a Jain king in the 12th century. The Lingayats are specially numerous in the Kanarese country, and to them the Kanarese language owes its cultivation as literature. ”

“ Opinions were divided as to the fitness of receiving such an applicant, but it was finally decided that, if a man repented, he was a fit person to be received into the Lingāyat fold, as the linga recognises no caste. The linga was accordingly tied on his neck. From that time Chikayya became a new man and a true Jangam, and went from place to place visiting sacred shrines. ”

“ The Lingam and Phallic Worship. § 6.
Whilst the cult of Venus sprang up in the interior of Asia and was disseminated from thence over other parts of the world, it is in India that the Lingam ritual took its rise, a ritual more closely corresponding with the egotism of man. The idea that was early formed as the result of observation, that the man’s genitals were the determining element in the process of generation, was bound to conceive these organs themselves as being, in the prevailing system of Pantheism, under the Government of a Deity, and therefore as specially holy66. ”

“ Of course, millions of men still adhere to the old corruptions. Millions in the remoter districts would retain the festival of Juggernaut, the hook-swinging, even infanticide and widow-burning, if they dared. The revolting orgies of Kali and Doorga, and the vilest forms of Siva worship, even the murderous rites of the Thugs, might be revived by the fanatical, if foreign influence were withdrawn; but, taking India as a whole, these things are coming to be discarded. The people are ashamed of them; they dare not undertake to defend them in the open day of the present civilization. ”