Liṅgāyat (Vīraśaiva)
A grouping whose distinctness is itself disputed within Śaivism. The disagreements in the sources are shown rather than settled.
Liṅgāyat (Vīraśaiva) is recorded within Śaivism. Whether it constitutes a distinct tradition is itself disputed in the sources. Also written Lingayatism, Veerashaiva, Liṅgavanta, Lingayats.
Origin
Founder named in the sources: Basava (Basavaṇṇa). No founding year is given below, because the sources read do not agree on one and a date has not been chosen for them. Worldmark Encyclopedia of Cultures and Daily Life: 'Basava (c. 1125- c. 1170), who lived in Kalyana, a small town in central India' established the movement as a rejection of brahmanical practice; the same entry dates the sect to the 12th century CE and derives the name from liṅga + ayta, 'the people who bear the liṅga'. Worldmark Encyclopedia of Religious Practices (Urban) gives Basava as 'died 1167'. Neither gives a founding year.
Continue reading this article
Sign in free to read in full. Become a member to join the discussion without limits.
Sign in free to read- ✓Read every article
- ✓Comment and reply (up to 100 words, 10/month)
- ✓Browse the community
- ✓Reader badge
- ✓
Citation
English
The language and the date you read it belong in the citation: this corpus is multilingual and articles are revised after publication.
John Shaqi. “Liṅgāyat (Vīraśaiva).” English version. 11 August 2026. https://johnshaqi.com/articles/sect-lingayat-virasaiva.
@misc{johnshaqi-sect-lingayat-virasaiva-en,
author = {John Shaqi},
title = {Liṅgāyat (Vīraśaiva)},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {English version},
url = {https://johnshaqi.com/articles/sect-lingayat-virasaiva},
note = {Accessed n.d.}
}The word count is counted from this edition. The minute estimate uses 238 words a minute, the silent reading rate for English non-fiction reported by Brysbaert (2019). The Urdu, Hindi and Roman Urdu editions carry a word count and no estimate, because no comparable rate has been published for those scripts.