Summary Basavanna traces the chain of fear. When wealth is lost, the mind trembles. When the mind trembles, chitta trembles. When the body is shaken or begins to fail, bhava…

Summary Basavanna challenges a familiar religious claim: people say that the Lord destroyed Kāma, desire. He immediately questions the claim by pointing to the Lord’s own consorts. If the story…

Summary Basavanna defines Sadachara at the death of a Linga-bhakta. The devotee is to be united at the feet of the Lord, the body is to be placed in samadhi,…

Summary Basavanna gives a compact rule of spiritual integrity: speak firmly, and live according to what has been spoken. Speech and conduct must not move on separate paths. Firm speech…

Summary Basavanna rejects birth as the measure of spiritual worth. Whether one is born to a servant woman or to a courtesan, once Shiva-diksha has been received, that person must…

Summary Basavanna does not deny fault. He names repeated fault: one fault, another fault, and yet another. The plea begins from honesty, not self-defense. He then asks Kudalasangama Deva whether…

Summary Basavanna exposes the emptiness of second-hand spiritual excitement. People may decorate themselves, follow the expected social path, watch the local claimers, and cry out, “Come, today our tiger has…

Summary Basavanna warns against reducing the Sharanas to ordinary embodied persons. Do not call them mere men, he says. They are my fathers, my kinsmen, my gods, and my lords.…

Summary Basavanna speaks from the discipline of offering body, mind, and wealth for the sake of Kudalasangama Deva’s Sharana. These three are not sought for personal gain. They are begged…

Summary Basavanna turns immediately from offering to the danger hidden within offering. To say “I have given my body” is already to drift away from the Guru’s word. To say…