Lingayat Kinship*

K. ISHWARAN

York University, Toronto, Canada

I

ACCORDING to the 1931 census, 17 % of the inhabitants in the proposed Mysore State were Lingayats. The Report of the States Reorganization Com- mission placed the figure a little more than 20% of the population of Mysore. Unfortunately, caste has been eliminated from recent censuses, but there is little reason to believe either that the 1937 figures were substantially incorrect, nor that they would be reduced today. The 1951 census in three northern districts of the State indicates that 1.25 % of the population had studied up to the seventh grade. According to one estimate, the literates in these districts were Lingayats. Thus it appears that in the present Mysore State, the Kannada speaking part of India, the Lingayats are a numerous and relatively well educated group. Lingayatism was a reform movement founded in the 12th century of the Christian era by Basava, minister at the court of King Bijjala of the Kalachurya Kingdom, occupying the north western part of the present Mysore State. The precipitating event was the marriage of a Brahman girl to an untouchable man and the war that was touched off thereupon. Basava defended universal frater- nity and equality and gathered about him disciples, whom he instructed in a new religion which thereby became firmly established. As a classical religion, Lingayatism was a reaction to certain aspects of Hinduism, and can hardly be understood apart from the latter religion. Its practices and beliefs are either taken over from Hinduism, or they represent a conscious negation of Hindu principles or rites. Specifically, Basava rejected caste, the immortality of the soul, differential and negative evaluation of work, and polytheism. Lingayatism preaches that all men and women, whatever their birth or position in society, are equal. In striking contradistinction to Hinduism, there are no ritual expressions of female inferiority. All Lingayats wear the sacred symbol of Shiva, all have their ears pierced. The movement is, furthermore, * The contents of the paper are drawn from a study conducted by the author of Shivapur, a village in South India. This forms part of a larger study out of which came a publication entitled, "Tradition and Economyin village India", Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, March 1966. 148 eminently this-wordly. There is no heaven, no hell, no life after death. Reward for virtue and punishment come in this life. One makes of this world a heaven or a hell. Sin will be punished either by external calamity, or, more importantly by the absence of peace of soul on the part of the sinner. Basava preached that work, in all its forms, was to be worshipped. Hence Lingayats are washermen, barbers, weavers, carpenters, teachers, farmers, and members of practically every occupational distinction. Work was to be worshipped as an extension of the design of the Creator, the god Shiva. "There is no god but Shiva, and Basava was his Prophet". In its conception of the Deity, Lingayatism resembles ancient Judaism. At the present time, however, Lingayatism in practice has taken over many of the aspects of Hinduism which it originally revolted against. While in principle opposed to caste, it has itself become a caste in the Hindu society, and, what is even more to the point, is divided, at least in Shivapur, into 16 sub- castes, each of which has a distinctive name, distinctive practices of ritual purity, pollution, and of prestige. Each Lingayat is supposed to be exempt from rules of purity and pollution, and a hierarchy of prestige. He wearings the holy phallic symbol of Shiva around his neck at all times. The members of the various Lingayat subcastes are in fact polytheistic, believe in dharma, karma, and reincarnation, practice ritual purity and pollution, and caste endogamy. In practice, though not in theory, Lingayatism, at the village level, is hardly distinguishable from "just another caste." Out of the 631 households, in Shivapur, 187 are Lingayat households. Lingayats number 1,250, or 32.6% of the population; there are 662 Lingayat males, 588 Lingayat females. The Lingayats, thus, while not a majority, are a plurality; no other caste is as large, nor do the strictly Hindu castes have as many members, even taken all together. The 16 sub-castes are divided not in terms of occupation, but in terms of their observance of various rules of ritual purity and pollution. Some of the sub- caste names, to be sure, could be translated by occupational designations, but these have no meanig in Shivapur, and many of the sub-caste names are meaningless even in the local language. The prestige ranking of the sub-castes, accepted by all members of the village, Lingayat and non-Lingayat alike, is based on conceptions of cleanliness and uncleanliness deriving from classical Hinduism, and completely foreign to classical Lingayatism. The 16 Lingayat sub-castes are cross-cut by six occupations: priestcraft, farmer, trader, blacksmith, barber, and weaver. Each occupational group within each caste forms a relatively endogamous group, of which there are 96, or an average of about 1.95 households for each occupational and caste cross classification.

II

The question, "are the Lingayats a caste, or a religion?", is not only one of sociological definition or conception, but of great practical importance. The