Lingayats are a Kannada-speaking religious group who are devotees (bhakta) of the deity Shiva and dwell mostly in the southern Indian state of Karnataka.
Lingayat origins may be traced back to the Nayanar
poet-saints of Tamil Nadu, who migrated northward in the seventh century.
Basavanna, a poet saint, founded the group, together with
Allama Prabhu and Mahadeviyakka.
The original members of the society were motivated by a
desire to know God and were impatient with anything that went in the way,
whether it was image worship, caste distinctions, or the obligations of family
life.
Lingayat culture has been shaped by these early influences.
The Lingayats do not worship with pictures.
The linga of Shiva, which all Lingayats wear as a token of
membership in the community, is their sole emblem.
The Lingayats have generally adhered to the egalitarian
beliefs of their forefathers.
Although there are no caste divisions in the society, there
are higher-status priestly families known as jangamas from whom the celibate
monks known as viraktas are often chosen.
In fact, this egalitarian focus has turned the whole
Lingayat community into a jati, one of the endogamous social groupings that
make up broader Indian society; the difference being that the Lingayats are
defined by their religious affiliation rather than their employment.
In contemporary Karnataka, the Lingayats are the most
powerful group, both in terms of historic landholding patterns and political
power.
A. K. Ramanujan's Speaking of Siva was published in 1973,
and Sivalingayya Channabasavayya Nandimath's A Handbook of Virasaivism was
published in 1979.
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