Summary
Basavanna presents four conditions that do not reverse. Clay that has become a pot does not return to unformed clay; butter clarified into ghee does not become butter again; gold does not become iron; and a pearl born in water does not become water again.
Each comparison establishes a changed or distinct condition that cannot simply return to its former measure. Basavanna then applies the same principle to the Sharana: one who has become Kudalasangama’s Sharana cannot return to being measured as an ordinary human being.
Sharana-being is therefore not a temporary designation, outward role, or passing devotional condition. It is an established transformation through which the former basis of identity no longer governs the person.
Imagery & Symbolic Relevance
Clay becoming a pot is the first image. Clay begins as unformed material, but once it has been shaped into a vessel, it stands in a definite condition. The former undifferentiated state no longer describes what it has become.
The pot retains clay as its material, yet it cannot be treated merely as a lump of clay. Basavanna uses this distinction to show that transformation does not necessarily destroy what existed before; it gives it a condition that cannot be ignored or reversed by ordinary return.
Butter becoming ghee gives the second image. Through melting and clarification, butter enters another condition. Ghee does not simply resume the form and nature of butter.
This image adds purification and completion to the movement. What was present in one form has been clarified into another, and the result carries a stability that the former condition did not possess.
Gold not becoming iron forms the third comparison. Basavanna does not describe gold as temporarily polished or externally decorated. Gold possesses a quality that does not lapse into iron.
The contrast therefore concerns established nature and value. What is truly gold cannot be reduced to a baser classification merely because someone chooses to regard it that way.
The pearl born in water forms the fourth image. Its origin is within water, but once the pearl has formed, it does not become water again. Origin does not erase the distinct condition that has arisen.
The pearl image is especially precise for the final movement. The Sharana continues within embodied and human life, just as the pearl remains associated with the water in which it arose. Yet the Sharana cannot be reduced to the former ordinary measure any more than the pearl can be called merely water.
The repeated expression following each comparison gives every image the force of a completed process. The pot, ghee, gold, and pearl are not presented as uncertain or transitional. Each stands in a condition from which ordinary reversal is unavailable.
The final statement gathers all four comparisons. One who has become Kudalasangama’s Sharana cannot become an ordinary human again. Basavanna does not deny the Sharana’s visible human body; he denies that bodily appearance alone can provide the complete measure of the transformed person.
The sequence moves from shaped earth, to clarified nourishment, to precious metal, to a jewel formed within water, and finally to the living Sharana. Material change prepares the recognition of spiritual irreversibility.
Lingayoga
In Lingayoga, practice must mature beyond temporary feeling, occasional remembrance, or an identity adopted only during worship. The Linga-relation must enter deeply enough to change the basis from which the practitioner lives.
The practical measure is irreversibility. The question is whether the former life of separation, divided belonging, and ordinary self-measure can simply resume after the practitioner has become established in Kudalasangama Deva’s Sharana-field.
The body and ordinary responsibilities continue, but they no longer provide the final definition of the person. Conduct, remembrance, relation to Linga, and belonging among the Sharanas now arise from a transformed center.
Editorial Commentary
The repeated closing expression after each comparison marks a completed transformation or established condition. Its force lies in finality: the former state cannot simply be restored as though no change had occurred.
The gold comparison must remain exact. Basavanna says that gold does not become iron. The image concerns the impossibility of reducing an established precious nature to a baser condition.
The final reference to becoming human again does not claim physical immortality or deny embodied existence. It rejects the reduction of Kudalasangama’s Sharana to ordinary bodily identity alone.
Related Vachana
Supporting Vachana
Sharana Sthala Vachana 1207 — Do Not Call Them Mere Men
Sharana Vachana 1207 repeatedly warns against calling the Sharanas mere human beings. Basavanna names them his fathers, kinsmen, gods, and lords, and rejects the judgment that sees them only as embodied persons.
This prepares Vachana 870 by correcting the observer’s vision. The Sharana may appear in a human body, but the body does not exhaust the meaning of the realized presence standing before it.
Vachana 870 reveals why this reduction is false. Clay that has become a pot, butter clarified into ghee, gold that cannot become iron, and a pearl formed within water cannot be returned to their earlier or lesser measure. In the same way, one who has become Kudalasangama’s Sharana cannot be classified again by the former ordinary human condition.
What Sharana Vachana 1207 establishes as purified vision before the realized person matures in Aikya Vachana 870 into the declaration of irreversible Sharana-being.
Advancing Vachana
Aikya Sthala Vachana 1010 — The End of Division, the Ocean of Bliss
Vachana 870 establishes the irreversible transformation of the Sharana through four concrete comparisons. The former condition can no longer return as the governing measure.
Vachana 1010 carries this irreversibility into the complete inward field. The delusion that one stands separate from another no longer governs the seeker. The agitation of “I want” and “I do not want” falls away, seeing becomes uninterrupted, verbal tumult settles, and the play of division comes to an end.
Kudalasangama Deva then removes the twofold karma, enters within, and makes the seeker His abode. The transformation declared through material images in Vachana 870 is thus shown in Vachana 1010 as established inward life.
The progression is direct: Vachana 870 declares that the Sharana cannot return to the former ordinary condition; Vachana 1010 reveals why such return has no ground. Division, preference, interrupted seeing, verbal disturbance, and karmic obstruction no longer reclaim the field in which Kudalasangama Deva abides.
