Summary
The Sharana acts according to the movement of the inwardly established mind. Even one accomplished in all the Agamas cannot finally examine him and declare, “He is this,” or “He is not this.”
Kudalasangama’s Sharana is neither sangi, one bound through attachment and association, nor nissangi, one defined through detachment and withdrawal.
This does not describe arbitrary behaviour or indecision. It reveals a realized condition in which neither worldly attachment nor the spiritual identity of renunciation governs conduct. The Sharana acts without being contained by either category.
Imagery & Symbolic Relevance
This vachana contains no material image. Its movement is created through conduct, learned inquiry, opposing judgments, and the final double negation.
The Sharana Acting as the Mind Moves
The opening presents the Sharana acting according to the mind.
This should not be understood as acting according to every passing wish, impulse, or personal desire. Such an interpretation would reduce the Sharana’s realized freedom to ordinary self-will.
The mind here is the inwardly established mind of Kudalasangama’s Sharana. Because it is no longer governed by attachment or by the pride of detachment, its movement cannot be judged through ordinary motives.
The Sharana does not construct his conduct to appear worldly, nor does he construct it to appear renunciate. His action arises naturally from his established relation with Kudalasangama Deva.
The Master of All the Agamas
Basavanna next brings forward one who has become learned in all the Agamas.
Such a person may search, compare, interpret, and classify. Yet scriptural mastery does not enable him to place the Sharana conclusively within an outward category.
The vachana does not reject the Agamas or sacred learning. It marks the limit of conceptual knowledge when it attempts to contain lived realization.
The Sharana’s state is not another doctrine that can be identified merely through scholarship. It must be recognized through living conduct and Anubhava.
“It Is” and “It Is Not”
The words corresponding to “it is” and “it is not” form the central opposition.
The learned observer cannot finally say that the Sharana belongs to one condition, nor can he establish the opposite. Affirmation and denial both become inadequate when they are used as complete definitions.
This does not mean that the Sharana’s condition is vague or uncertain. The limitation lies in the judgment, not in the Sharana.
His realized state is definite, but it cannot be exhausted by the observer’s opposing conclusions.
Neither Sangi nor Nissangi
The concluding line gives the vachana its decisive force:
Kudalasangama’s Sharana is not sangi and is not nissangi.
As sangi, one would be bound through attachment, possessiveness, dependence, or identification with association.
As nissangi, one might define oneself through withdrawal, separation, or the claim, “I am detached.”
The Sharana is confined by neither identity. He may participate in life without becoming possessed by association. He may remain free without creating a spiritual identity from detachment.
Basavanna does not say that the Sharana is simultaneously attached and detached. He says that neither term provides his true measure.
Lingayoga
For the practitioner, this vachana requires careful discrimination.
One must examine whether conduct arises from desire, possessiveness, fear, aversion, social dependence, or pride in renunciation. Attachment and the self-conscious performance of detachment can both preserve the separate self.
The seeker must not imitate the realized Sharana by claiming freedom to act according to personal preference. The freedom described here follows inward establishment; it is not permission for undisciplined behaviour.
Lingayoga therefore moves toward conduct in which neither attraction nor rejection determines the relation with Linga. Action remains accountable, but self-defining attachment and renunciation cease to govern it.
Editorial Commentary
“As the mind moves” must not be interpreted as arbitrary self-will. Within the concluding grammar, it indicates action arising from a mind no longer bound by the opposing identities of attachment and detachment.
Sangi indicates one attached, entangled, associated, or defined through relationship and possession.
Nissangi indicates one detached or disassociated. Here even detachment cannot become a final identity claimed by the Sharana.
The inability to declare “it is” or “it is not” does not abolish responsible discernment. It prevents conceptual or scriptural classification from being mistaken for complete knowledge of the realized Sharana.
Related Vachana
Supporting Vachana
Sharana Sthala Vachana 1331 — Gather What Has Been Deposited in the Eternal Treasury
Sharana Vachana 1331 distinguishes the possession of sacred words from their becoming lived truth. A vast treasury of vachanas may already have been deposited, yet words can remain like the cry of a fox before an unmoved mountain unless they are gathered into awareness, conduct, and Anubhava.
This prepares Vachana 1357 directly. Mastery of sacred speech or of all the Agamas does not by itself reveal the Sharana’s realized state. What has been learned must become living experience before the Sharana can be approached beyond verbal classifications.
Advancing Vachana
Aikya Sthala Vachana 875 — The Sharana Who Is Not Two
Vachana 1357 removes the categories of attachment and detachment as final measures of the Sharana.
Vachana 875 deepens this freedom by showing Kudalasangama Deva’s Sharana beyond further oppositions: he is not confined either to form or to formlessness, is not governed by doubt, and does not deceive the body or betray life.
Thus freedom from sangi and nissangi in Vachana 1357 expands into a wider realized indivisibility. Opposing spiritual categories no longer define the Sharana, while integrity within embodied life remains undiminished.
