Question

What is lingayat and veerashaiva lingayat?

Answer 1

Gauri Lankesh, a senior journalist from Karnataka, was shot dead last year. In light of the political debate over granting the Lingayats reservation and a minority status, Business Standard is publishing this piece by the slain journalist to help the reader gain some perspective on the issue. This article was originally published on August 8, 2017, by The Wire.

Are Lingayats the same as Veerashaivas? Are Veerashaivas a part of Hinduism? But aren’t Lingayats claiming they are not Hindus? A debate has been raging on in Karnataka over the last month around these three questions.

Let’s be clear about a couple of things at the outset. Though many people believed for a long time that Lingayats and Veerashaivas were one and the same, and that the words were interchangeable, they are very different. Lingayats are followers of Basavanna, the 12th-century social reformer who rebelled against Hindu society and established a new dharma. Veerashaivism, as the name suggests, is an order of Shaiva faith, which in turn is one of the two major Vedic faiths – the other one being the Vaishnava faith. Both Shaiva and Vaishnava followers constitute thesanatana dharma.