Summary
Basavanna says that where worship was present, he sang of Linga; where speech was present, he sang of Jangama; and where the tongue was present, he sang of Prasada.
Linga, Jangama, and Prasada are first honoured through their corresponding modes of worship, utterance, and embodied reception. Basavanna does not bypass or dismiss this sacred threefold relation.
Then comes the decisive change: when this threefold became nāsti—no longer standing as a separate threefold—Basavanna says, “I sang myself.”
The singer no longer stands apart from Linga, Jangama, and Prasada as three external objects to be praised. Their truth has become so fully assimilated that the distinction between the one who sings and what is sung no longer governs the experience. Yet the vachana still ends by addressing Kudalasangama Deva, preserving devotion within this undivided condition.
Imagery & Symbolic Relevance
The vachana is structured through three parallel statements.
The first joins puja and Linga. Where worship is present, Linga is sung or praised.
Puja gives the active devotional relation. Linga is not merely named or possessed; Linga is approached through reverence. Basavanna therefore begins with the recognised movement of worshipper toward the worshipped.
The second joins māṭa and Jangama. Māṭa here carries the sense of speech, utterance, or word.
Jangama is the living sacred presence encountered through relationship, teaching, address, and response. Speech is therefore not merely sound. It is the field in which the living relation with Jangama becomes expressible.
The third joins the tongue and Prasada. The tongue is both the organ of utterance and the organ through which food is tasted and received.
Prasada is consequently not treated as an abstract concept. It enters embodied life. It is received, tasted, acknowledged, and praised through the tongue.
The three opening lines preserve distinct relations:
worship and Linga,
speech and Jangama,
tongue and Prasada.
The repetition of “I sang” is essential. Basavanna actively honours each sacred reality. The repetition also maintains a distinction: there is one who sings, an act of singing, and something sacred being sung.
The expression “this threefold” gathers the complete structure just named. It includes Linga, Jangama, and Prasada as they stand before the seeker through worship, speech, and embodied reception.
The word nāsti is stark. It means that the threefold is absent or no longer exists in the manner in which it previously stood.
This does not mean that Linga, Jangama, and Prasada have been declared false. They have already been sung and honoured. What falls away is their separate external standing before the singer.
The concluding expression is reflexive: “I sang myself.”
Basavanna does not ask who remained to sing. He declares that he sang himself or sang his own being.
This is not ordinary self-praise. The earlier singer had stood before Linga, Jangama, and Prasada as distinct sacred relations. After that threefold distinction became absent, the song could no longer move outward in the same way.
The self itself became the field of the song. What had been approached through three distinct relations was no longer separate from the one who sang.
The closing address, “Kudalasangama Deva,” guards the statement from egoic interpretation. Basavanna does not establish an autonomous self and celebrate it apart from the Lord. Even the declaration “I sang myself” is spoken directly before Kudalasangama Deva.
The sequence is exact: Linga is sung through worship, Jangama through speech, Prasada through the tongue; the threefold becomes absent as a separate structure; and Basavanna sings himself before Kudalasangama Deva.
Lingayoga
In Lingayoga, Linga, Jangama, and Prasada must first be lived truthfully. Their transcendence cannot be claimed before worship, living relationship, and sacred receiving have ripened.
The practitioner begins through distinct relations: Linga is worshipped, Jangama is reverently encountered, and Prasada is received. Each disciplines a different part of life.
Linga gathers inward devotion. Jangama brings that devotion into living relationship. Prasada teaches reception without private ownership.
As these relations become fully assimilated, they cease to remain only external practices. Linga becomes the centre of one’s being, Jangama becomes inseparable from living awareness and conduct, and Prasada becomes the condition in which life itself is received.
The falling away of the threefold must therefore not be artificially produced. It is not accomplished by abandoning worship, rejecting Jangama, or refusing Prasada.
It occurs through fulfilment. The means are lived so completely that the practitioner no longer stands outside them as a separate claimant.
“I sang myself” gives the mature Lingayoga movement. Practice is no longer something one performs toward an external sacred object while preserving an independent spiritual identity. The life of the practitioner itself becomes the expression of what was previously worshipped, spoken, and received.
Editorial Commentary
The final line is declarative:
“After this threefold became absent, I sang myself, see, O Kudalasangama Deva.”
It should not be rewritten as “Who remained to sing?” The Kannada retains Basavanna as the grammatical speaker and presents a reflexive act of singing.
The phrase “I sang myself” must also not be interpreted as personal boasting. The preceding line has already removed the threefold structure through which the singer stood separately before Linga, Jangama, and Prasada.
Nāsti should not be read as nihilistic denial. Basavanna first honours all three. Their absence signifies the ending of separateness after assimilation, not the rejection of the sacred path.
Māṭa is best retained here as speech, word, or utterance. Enlarging it into magical action would disrupt the parallel movement between worship, speech, and tongue.
The tongue should not be restricted to physical tasting alone. It carries both reception and utterance, making Prasada part of embodied and expressed life.
Related Vachana
Supporting Vachana
Sharana Sthala Vachana 1347 — Where the World Ends and the Sharana Begins
Sharana Vachana 1347 presents Linga as the dwelling, Jangama as svāyatta, and Prasada as the very life-breath.
It prepares Vachana 916 by showing the three sacred realities becoming the inward structure of the Sharana’s life rather than remaining occasional external practices.
Advancing Vachana
Aikya Sthala Vachana 1180 — When Fulfillment Comes, Even the Means Are Transcended
Vachana 1180 says that once Guru, Linga, Jangama, and Prasada have become fully svāyatta, they are forgotten as separate means.
Thus the threefold absence of Vachana 916 advances into complete assimilation, where the devotee lives ripened in the sacred relations without holding them apart from lived being.
