Summary Basavanna examines two familiar declarations: Brahma is called the creator, and Vishnu is called the protector. He tests these titles through the limits named in the vachana. Brahma cannot…

Summary Basavanna points to those called Nārāyaṇa, Vīrāyaṇa, Bomma, and Imma. When poison burns and Vīrabhadra strikes, all of them cry out for refuge in Kudalasangayya. The vachana tests the…

Summary While churning for nectar, those called gods encounter the burning poison. Unable to withstand it, they run to Śiva and seek His refuge. Basavanna asks what becomes of their…

Summary Basavanna asks whether Viṣṇu can be called great when his ten incarnations repeatedly undergo defeat and disruption. He asks whether Brahma can be called great when his head is…

Summary Basavanna surveys worship distributed across ruined places, village roads, tanks, wells, flowering groves, village centres, waterways, town entrances, and shrines established beneath an old tree. He then names beings…

Summary Basavanna places lion-like power, Nandikeshwara, Bhringi’s dance, and the directional deities before the Linga. None of them can stand as another independent Divine reality before Kudalasangama Deva. He then…

Summary Basavanna repeatedly forbids speech that separates Shiva from Vishnu and Nārāyaṇa from Hara. The reversal of the names shows that the prohibition applies from either direction. Neither name should…

Summary Basavanna repeats one cause through six examples: because the Brahmin was believed to be Deva, Gautama incurred cow-killing, Bali was bound, Karna lost his armour, Daksha received a sheep’s…

Summary Basavanna names four Purāṇas and the fields in which each becomes a destructive or decisive force: the Ādi Purāṇa among the Asuras, the Veda-Purāṇa in relation to the Hoti,…

Summary Basavanna begins with the common ground of embodied birth. The body has no separate foundation apart from the womb, and the process of the fluid-drop is the same. Desire,…