Summary
Through the Guru’s compassion, the seeker understands the passing nature of worldly identity and the truth that lies beyond it. He gives up the inner and outer bhavi condition and stands wholly devoted. This is called the true Anga of Linga.
Basavanna then names three impurities: inward conditioning, attachment arising from ordinary human identity, and outward entanglement. When these are removed, Shiva-bhakti is no longer merely an activity performed by the body; devotion itself becomes the Anga.
For the Linga-worshipper established in Linga-Aikya, former caste, stage of life, and ritual impurity no longer define spiritual identity. Kudalasangama Deva alone becomes the ground of life.
Imagery & Symbolic Relevance
The vachana first asks the seeker to understand both iha and para—this worldly condition and the truth beyond it.
Knowing the former nature of worldly life means seeing that inherited identity, social position, bodily condition, and external status are not permanent measures of the self.
Knowing the prior truth of the Beyond means recognizing the Divine ground that is not created by those worldly classifications.
This recognition becomes possible through Guru-karunya, the compassion of the Guru. Basavanna does not present transformation as a private intellectual discovery. The Guru helps the seeker distinguish passing identity from the truth of Linga.
The seeker then abandons the bhavi condition within and without. Bhavi here indicates the condition in which one lives through separation, worldly identification, and the belief that one stands apart from Linga.
The inward bhavi condition includes the hidden sense of “I” and “mine.” The outward condition appears through conduct and relationships governed by that separate identity.
When these are left behind, the seeker stands as bhakti-parayana—one wholly given to devotion. Devotion is no longer occasional or added to ordinary life. It becomes the direction of the whole person.
Basavanna calls this “the true Anga of Linga.” The body becomes truly related to Linga when life is governed by devotion rather than by separate identity.
The second part of the vachana describes the removal of three impurities.
The first is the impurity of the inner field. This is the conditioning that remains within thought, intention, desire, pride, and self-identification.
The second is the impurity of human attachment. The person defines himself through inherited relationships, social standing, approval, and the identity given by the surrounding world.
The third is outward impurity or entanglement. This appears when external signs, customs, possessions, or classifications are treated as the true measure of spiritual worth.
Basavanna does not say that these three are merely hidden or temporarily restrained. They are driven far away.
The central declaration follows: “Shiva-bhakti itself became the Anga.”
Ordinarily, the body appears first and devotion is one of its activities. Here the order has changed. Devotion has become the very condition through which the body lives, acts, and is known.
The worshipper is therefore described as established in Linga-Aikya. This is not simply closeness to Linga during worship. Anga no longer derives its identity from anything outside the Linga-relation.
The final line removes the authority of former varna, ashrama, and sutaka.
Varna refers to inherited caste classification. Ashrama refers to the conventional stage or social-religious condition of life. Sutaka refers to ritual impurity attached to birth, death, bodily events, or social regulation.
Basavanna says that these former measures do not apply to the Linga-Aikya worshipper. The person is now known through Shiva-bhakti and Linga, not through inherited or ritual classification.
The complete movement is therefore from understanding worldly and transcendent truth, to receiving the Guru’s compassion, removing three forms of conditioning, becoming devotion in the whole body, and standing beyond the former authority of caste, status, and ritual impurity.
Lingayoga
In Lingayoga, purification must reach the inward sense of identity. External signs and observances cannot complete the practice while pride, attachment, and separation remain active.
The seeker should allow Shiva-bhakti to guide the whole of embodied life. When devotion governs thought, relationship, and conduct, the Anga no longer lives from inherited identity but from its relation with Linga.
The practical measure is not the claim of having reached Aikya. It is whether the three forms of conditioning have lost their authority and whether devotion has become the natural movement of life.
Editorial Commentary
The three impurities should not be treated as three physical substances. They describe inward conditioning, human or social attachment, and outward entanglement.
The statement that Shiva-bhakti becomes the Anga does not mean destruction of the body. It means that devotion becomes the body’s governing identity and expression.
The removal of caste, ashrama, and sutaka concerns their authority as spiritual measures. It does not remove responsibility, right conduct, or regard for others.
Related Vachana
Supporting Vachana
Sharana Sthala Vachana 588 — Ritual Cannot Purify the Heart
Sharana Vachana 588 contrasts outer purification with knowledge of Kudalasangama Deva. It names grass held for ritual, a cord worn around the neck, repeated washing, plunging into water, and holding the nose in bodily discipline.
Basavanna then points to Dohara Kakkayya and asks in what stream such a Sharana was purified. Kakkayya’s worth does not come from bathing, caste, or outward religious signs. It comes from being established among Kudalasangama Deva’s Sharanas.
This prepares Vachana 1064 directly.
Vachana 588 rejects the belief that external practice can create inward purity. Vachana 1064 shows the completed purification: the inner, human, and outward forms of conditioning have been removed.
What begins in Sharana Sthala as freedom from ritual measures matures in Aikya as Shiva-bhakti becoming the Anga itself. The realized worshipper is no longer defined by former caste, stage of life, or ritual impurity.
Advancing Vachana
Aikya Sthala Vachana 1242 — Beyond the “I” Before the Linga
Vachana 1064 shows the worshipper freed from inherited and ritual identity because Shiva-bhakti has become the whole embodied condition.
Vachana 1242 carries this further by asking where the separate “I” can remain before the great reality called Linga. The Sharana may continue to bear a body, but that does not make him ordinary or inwardly separate from the natural Divine condition.
The continuation is precise. Vachana 1064 removes the former identities attached to the body. Vachana 1242 removes the separate claimant within the body.
Thus the Anga formed by Shiva-bhakti advances into embodied life where the body remains, but the independent “I” no longer defines the Sharana.
