Summary
Basavanna asks what it matters in which bhava the Sharanas trusted Shiva, how the great ones who trusted Shiva appeared, or how those of noble conduct lived.
He extends the question to the philosopher’s stone: what does its outward condition matter when its power is to remove the baseness of metal?
In the same way, Kudalasangama’s Sharanas cannot be measured by appearance, condition, manner, or conventional expectation. They are oceans of rasa—vast, living, and inexhaustible in their Divine experience.
Imagery & Symbolic Relevance
The repeated phrase “what does it matter?” governs the vachana. Each question removes the impulse to judge realized beings through an external measure.
The first question concerns the bhava in which the Sharanas trusted Shiva. Their inward states, modes of devotion, and ways of approaching Shiva may not all appear identical.
Basavanna does not ask that every Sharana display one uniform emotional or devotional condition. What matters is their trust in Shiva, not the outward form through which that trust appears.
The second question concerns the mahimaru—the great or spiritually distinguished ones who trusted Shiva. Their greatness cannot be reduced to visible form, social position, or recognizable religious behaviour.
The third question concerns the sucharitraru, those of noble conduct. Even true conduct may take forms that cannot be understood through ordinary expectation.
The question does not make conduct irrelevant. It warns against assuming that the realized person must conform to the observer’s preferred image of holiness.
The philosopher’s stone gives the central comparison. Its significance lies not in its size, shape, colour, or outward appearance, but in its transforming power.
The phrase concerning the removal of baseness from metal shows this power clearly. Ordinary metal comes into contact with the philosopher’s stone and is freed from its former inferior condition.
The comparison turns the attention from appearance to effect. One does not judge the philosopher’s stone by what it looks like, but by the transformation accomplished through its contact.
Kudalasangama’s Sharanas are then called rasada varidhigalu—oceans of rasa. The plural “oceans” preserves the distinct living presence of the Sharanas while declaring the immeasurable fullness within each.
Rasa here indicates living spiritual relish, depth of experience, and the fullness arising through Shiva-relation. It is not merely emotion or aesthetic pleasure.
The ocean image gives vastness, depth, abundance, and inexhaustibility. A surface glance cannot disclose the full measure of an ocean.
The movement is therefore from varieties of bhava, greatness, and noble conduct, to the philosopher’s stone whose value lies in transformation, and finally to the Sharanas as immeasurable oceans of rasa.
Lingayoga
In Lingayoga, the realized Sharana cannot be measured only by outward appearance or by conformity to a single expected devotional form.
The practitioner must learn to recognize transforming presence. Just as the philosopher’s stone is known through what its touch accomplishes, the Sharana is known through the rasa, clarity, and transformation that arise through living contact.
The practical correction is restraint in judgment. Bhava and conduct remain important, but the seeker must not convert personal expectation into the final measure of Kudalasangama Deva’s Sharanas.
Editorial Commentary
The repeated “what does it matter?” does not dismiss devotion, greatness, or noble conduct. It rejects the attempt to confine realized beings within outward classification.
The philosopher’s stone is introduced as the power that removes the baseness or inferior condition of metal. The comparison concerns transformative efficacy rather than physical description.
The plural “oceans” should also be preserved. Basavanna does not erase the Sharanas into an abstract sameness; he recognizes each as possessing immeasurable fullness.
Related Vachana
Supporting Vachana
Sharana Sthala Vachana 147 — The Path Without Fear
Sharana Vachana 147 asks the seeker to look at the path walked by the earlier Sharanas. It recalls severe and extraordinary trials and calls Kudalasangama Deva’s Sharanas persons of impossible accomplishment and uncommon conduct.
This prepares Vachana 792 directly. Vachana 147 establishes that the conduct of the Sharanas cannot always be understood through ordinary expectation. Their lives may appear extraordinary, reversed, or impossible to those who judge from conventional measures.
Vachana 792 carries this recognition further. It asks what it matters how the Sharanas, the great ones, or those of noble conduct appeared in their respective bhavas. Their reality is not exhausted by outward description.
What Sharana Vachana 147 presents as extraordinary and fearless conduct matures in Aikya Vachana 792 into freedom from measurement: Kudalasangama’s Sharanas are oceans of rasa whose depth cannot be determined from the surface.
Advancing Vachana
Aikya Sthala Vachana 941 — See the Sahaja Sharana
Vachana 792 removes the ordinary measures applied to the Sharanas. Their bhava, greatness, conduct, and outward manner cannot contain the fullness of what they are.
Vachana 941 carries this into direct vision. The Sharana is shown beyond birth and death, doubt, form and formlessness, bodily deception, and imagined escape from embodied life. He abides in uninterrupted Sahaja and is declared incomparable.
The continuation is precise: Vachana 792 asks why the Sharana should be measured by external condition; Vachana 941 reveals the mature Sharana who cannot be confined within opposing categories at all.
The oceanic rasa of Vachana 792 deepens into the uninterrupted Sahaja presence of Vachana 941. What could not be measured is now beheld as the incomparable Sharana of Kudalasangama Deva.
