205. Exploring Vachana Bhakti

The composition of a rich and huge body of Vachanas is one of the most impressive expression of Indian spiritual heritage. Both the quantity and quality of this corpus is unparalleled elsewhere. This enormous output consists of impassioned socio-spiritual prose poems composed by approximately four hundred seeker poets hailing from all sections of society – the whole gamut, from Brahmin to the untouchable, a considerable number of these poets are women representing various castes and professions. Such a phenomenon was not replicated anywhere else in the annals of pre-modern Indian literatures. The main progenitor of Lingayatism, say scholars, was Basavanna, Finance Minister of emperor Bijjala. The literature also further assumes that  Basavanna set-up in Kalyana Anubhava Mantapa, an assembly of saint-poets. The Vachana poets are supposed to have gathered in this assembly to debate matters spiritual, compose, read, and discuss each others' compositions. The Lingayat literary harvest is said to be contemporaneous with the active period of Basavanna's tenure with the emperor. This brief but intense poetic efflorescence was cut short by political upheavals caused by the violation of traditional caste rules. The questioning of the caste order and gender subjugation irritated the hegemony so much that it led to the unleashing of violence against the followers of the new sect. A series of twists and turns resulted in Bijjala's assassination by some militant followers of the sect which called for a violent response by the hegemony. In consequence, the revolution failed. This is the widely accepted version of this period. The available scholarship, for the most part, locates Vachanas on the map of India's Bhakti movements. In this episode of  BIC Talks the specifics and varieties of Bhakti in the Vachana focus will be explored to show how similar and different is Vachana Bhakti from the rest of the Bhakti movements in Karnataka and the Indian subcontinent. This episode was originally part of a masterclass series that took place in the BIC premises in late July and early August titled The Paths of the Hand, Heart and Void by Prof. HS Shivaprakash - poet, playwright and educator.