Context:

Global Basava Jayanthi – 2020 held digitally by connecting followers in India and abroad.

About:

• Basava Jayanthi is an annual event celebrated in honour of the birth of Vishwa guru Basaveshwara or Lord Basavanna, the 12th-century philosopher and social reformer and the founding saint of the Lingayat faith.
• The festival is observed by people of the Lingayat community mostly in Karnataka and parts of Maharashtra, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh with much fanfare.
• The objective of the festival is to pass the message of ‘VasudhaivaKutumbakam’ (universal brotherhood). His message found expression in the form of Vachanas that define a new way of looking at God and life.

Vira Saiva movement:

• Basavanna was a reformer. He became the leader of the ViraSaiva movement. He established a cult that is accepted today by many people.
• It developed a school of poor priests. It abolished the old priestly class and adopted the vernacular as the medium for inculcating the supreme truth into the people. It gave to women an important place in religious and social life.
• It prescribed one ideal of realisaƟ on for every individual, high or low.

Quick facts about Basavanna:

• Basavanna was born in Karnataka’s Ingaleshwar, Bagewadi town, which is 20 km away from Hungundtaluk.
• He grew up in Kudalasangama and married Gangambikel, the daughter of Bijjala’s (one of the famous Chalukya kings) prime minister.
• Some of the works credited to Basavanna include Vachana such as the Shat-sthala-vachana, Kala-jnana-vachana, Mantra-gopya, Ghatachakra-vachana and Raja-yoga-vachana.
• Basava advocated that every human being was equal, irrespective of caste and that all forms of manual labour were equally important.
• In 2015, the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi inaugurated the statue of Basavanna along the bank of the River Thames at Lambeth in London.
• Furthermore, Basavanna is the first Kannadiga in whose honour a commemorative coin has been minted in recognition of his social reforms.
• He is also known as Bhaktibhandari (literally, the treasurer of devotion), or Basaveswara (Lord Basava).

Lingayat community:

• The Lingayat/Veerashaiva community, a politically dominant group in Karnataka, is a devotee of Shiva.
• The Lingayats follow 12th-century saint-philosopher Basavanna who had rejected ritualistic worship and pre-eminence of the Vedas.
• The Veerashaivas sect of the community also worships Shiva idols and practices other Hindu customs.
• The Lingayats consider the Veershaivas to be part of Hinduism as they follow Hindu customs while the Veerashaivas think the community was an ancient religion established by Shiva and Basavanna was one of its saints.