Śaivism after the Śaiva Age

[Full title: Śaivism after the Śaiva Age: Continuities in the Scriptural Corpus of the Vīramāheśvaras]

religions Article ´Saivism after the ´Saiva Age: Continuities in the Scriptural Corpus of the Viramahesvaras Elaine M. Fisher Citation: Fisher, Elaine M.. 2021 ´Saivism after the ´Saiva Age: Continuities in the Scriptural Corpus of the Viramahe´svaras Religions 12: 222. https://doi.org/10.3390/ rel 12030222 Academic Editor: Glen A. Hayes Received: 4 February 2021 Accepted: 3 March 2021 Published: 23 March 2021 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations Copyright: © 2021 by the author Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommonsorg/licenses/by/ 4.0/) Religious Studies, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA; emf@stanfordedu Abstract: This article makes the case that Virasaivism emerged in direct textual continuity with the tantric traditions of the ´Saiva Age. In academic practice up through the present day, the study of ´Saivism, through Sanskrit sources, and bhakti Hinduism, through the vernacular, are generally treated as distinct disciplines and objects of study. As a result, Virasaivism has yet to be systematically approached through a philological analysis of its precursors from earlier ´Saiva traditions. With this aim in mind, I begin by documenting for the first time that a thirteenth-century Sanskrit work of what I have called the Viramahe´svara textual corpus, the Somanathabhasya or Viramahesvaracarasaroddharabhasya , was most likely authored by Palkurik˘e Somanatha, best known for his vernacular Telugu Virasaiva literature. Second, I outline the indebtedness of the early Sanskrit and Telugu Viramahesvara corpus to a popular work of early lay ´Saivism, the ´Sivadharma´sastra , with particular attention to the concepts of the ja ˙ngama and the istali˙nga . That the Viramahesvaras borrowed many of their formative concepts and practices directly from the ´Sivadharmasastra and other works of the ´Saiva Age, I argue, belies the common assumption that Virasaivism originated as a social and religious revolution Keywords: Virasaiva; Li ˙ngayat; Hinduism; Sanskrit; Telugu; ´Saivism; South Asia; multilingualism 1. Virasaivism, Tantra, and the ´Saiva Age By the mid-thirteenth century, ´Saivism in the Deccan had already been irrevocably transformed by the decline of the ´Saiva Age, as Alexis Sanderson has called it, the golden age of what we colloquially describe as “tantric ´Saivism” ( Sanderson 2009 ). Perhaps most remarkably, the ´Saiva institutions that had previously dominated the region’s religious ecology were rapidly disappearing, particularly those of the Kalamukhas. Descending from the Lakula traditions, or what Alexis Sanderson has termed Atimarga II, the Kalamukhas left behind precious few of the scriptures that must have originally distinguished their practice from competitors within the Atimarga and Mantramarga, and none in full recensions. Nevertheless, even before Alexis Sanderson and his students had revolutionized our narrative of medieval ´Saivism over the past two to three decades, the Kalamukhas were already known to have vanished abruptly, as their landholdings were systematically replaced by another ´Saiva tradition rising to prominence in the region, the Virasaivas. As a field, we owe our original awareness of this phenomenon to the pathbreaking work of David Lorenzen, who in his monograph, The Kapalikas and Kalamukhas: Two Lost ´Saivite Sects , compiled a voluminous array of inscriptional evidence to document how Kalamukha matha s (monasteries) ceased to be patronized precisely as inscriptions increasingly attested to the presence of Virasaiva devotional figures at the same sites 1 Reflecting further on this state of affairs, however, Lorenzen later added an appendix to his work, claiming that Kalamukha matha s were not merely displaced, but rather were overthrown by a veritable religious revolution. As Lorenzen writes: 1 ( Lorenzen 1991 ; see also Shanthamurthy ( 2015 ). Although inscriptions in the Karnataka region often refer to the tradition with the spelling Kalamukha, because the name is shown in textual citations to be originally synonymous with the Sanskrit asitavaktra (“black face”), I use the spelling Kalamukha here throughout) Religions 2021 , 12 , 222. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel 12030222 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/religions

Religions 2021 , 12 , 222 2 of 24 It can even be said the two [Kalamukha and Virasaiva] movements represent antipodes of Indian intellectual and religious tradition[:] the Brahmanic and the anti-Brahmanic, the scholastic and the devotional, Sanskrit learning and vernacular poetic inspiration, pan-Indian culture and regional culture, social and spiritual hierarchy and social and spiritual equality . . . . Virasaivism represented not “a reformist schism of the Kalamukha church” but rather its overthrow ( Lorenzen 1991 , p. 242) For Lorenzen, in essence, Virasaivism is the quintessential representative of the Bhakti Movement: a fundamentally anti-brahmin, anti-caste “movement”, a radical rupture of social protest, and a purely vernacular religion of the people 2 Lorenzen is not alone, of course, in attributing these features to Virasaivism. To the contrary, in the wake of A. K. Ramanujan’s celebrated Speaking of ´Siva ( Ramanujan 1973 ), the field of South Asian religions has naturalized his portrayal of Virasaivism as a social and religious revolution. Ramanujan, in turn, imported the perspectives of earlier intellectuals writing in Kannada who emplotted Virasaivism quite explicitly as an Indian foil for the Protestant Reformation 3 But does this narrative accurately capture the influences that precipitated the emergence of Virasaivism? If we depict Virasaivism as essentially a devotional ( bhakti ) revolution, for instance, we might be inclined to delineate the ´Saivism after the ´Saiva Age as something radically different from its predecessors, those traditions that fall under the category of “´Saiva tantra ” Indeed, most scholarly monographs and articles on Virasaivism scarcely mention the word “ tantra ”, and historicize Virasaivism only in relation to other communities traditionally categorized as “ bhakti ”, as if an unbridgeable chasm separated the two 4 Likewise, even leading scholars of ´Saiva philology flag the “movement of the non-brahmin Virasaivas” ( Sanderson 2012–2013 , p. 83) as of interest to what we might call Tantric Studies only for its occasional borrowings from the ´Saiva Siddh¯anta and the Trika of Kashmir Yet, if we read this antagonism back into the origins of Virasaivism as a moment of rupture, we risk putting forward a thesis that—as I would like to argue as explicitly as possible—is completely in contradiction with our textual evidence. To put matters even more plainly, based on philological evidence, Virasaivism did not originate as a revolution or reformation of tantric ´Saivism, nor of Kalamukha traditions in particular. Indeed, a large part of the problem facing earlier generations of scholars was that adequate textual evidence had not yet come to our attention. Only a fraction of early Virasaiva literature has been studied to date, in part because we have restricted the source languages of our archive to the vernacular, exclusive of Sanskrit, and in part because we lacked sufficient knowledge of what had come before. Of course, print editions of such Virasaiva works in Sanskrit did exist, as Virasaiva monasteries published a substantial quantity of the tradition’s literary history in the late-nineteenth and twentieth centuries. For institutional reasons, however, scholars trained in early Kannada and Telugu literature have rarely consulted Sanskrit texts, and when they did so, they previously lacked sufficient knowledge of the pre-Virasaiva traditions of the ´Saiva Age from the region to draw clear connections between the two 5 Likewise, and perhaps more crucially for the present audience, when ´Saivism is studied from a philological perspective, vernacular literature is rarely consulted, and in this case, 2 On the historical construction of the concept of the Bhakti Movement, however, see ( Hawley 2015 ), who distinguishes the modern conception from the early modern origins of the Vaisnava model of the “four sampradaya s” 3 I have discussed at greater length in ( Fisher 2019 ) the problems with emplotting non-Western history based on the metanarrative of the Protestant Reformation 4 In fact, modern scholars were not the first to bifurcate Indian religion into tantra and bhakti as polar opposites; even early modern Vaisnavas had begun to develop an antipathy toward traditions they perceived as tantric in nature ( Burchett 2019 ). 5 See, for instance, ( Nandimath 1942 ), for an example of a now classic work on Virasaivism that aimed to integrate data from Sanskrit texts, even if quite preliminarily. Other works of scholarship from past decades, such as Michael ( 1983 ), acknowledge Sanskrit data while reifying the Li ˙ngayat/Pañcac¯arya binary and reading it into the earlier centuries of the tradition.

Religions 2021 , 12 , 222 3 of 24 as I will argue, the contemporary Telugu textual context is indispensable for historicizing the early Virasaiva works in question 6 In this article, I will make the case that Virasaivism emerged in direct textual continuity with the “tantric” traditions of the ´Saiva Age, especially the Atimarga II of the Kalamukhas, although in a number of cases early Virasaivism was influenced by Mantramarga traditions as well. As an embryonic version of this article was originally presented at the Society for Tantric Studies Conference in 2019, I present evidence that specifically sheds new light on how we define and periodize what we call tantra , but a similar corrective must be taken in our broader narratives of Hindu and South Asian religious traditions as well. In an earlier article in the journal History of Religions ( Fisher 2019 ), I introduced elements of my claim by delineating the canon of what I have called the Viramahesvara textual culture of Srisailam As I demonstrated in that publication, we have access to a rich body of early Virasaiva didactic literature that I date to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, contemporary with our earliest vernacular evidence for Virasaivism and heavily indebted to the textual canons of the ´Saiva Age, most notably (but by no means limited to) the ´Sivadharmasastra . Whereas in that context I dealt with issues of historiography facing Religious Studies and South Asian Studies, my project here is primarily philological. Naturally, much work remains to be done in critically editing this textual corpus, and tracing parallels in the citations of many of the otherwise rarely attested early recensions of prior ´Saiva scriptures. As a result, the evidence presented here will be extended in subsequent publications on the ritual practice and textual canons of the Viramahesvaras With such an aim in mind, I will reiterate in greater philological detail the case for dating the Viramahesvara corpus to around the thirteenth to early-fourteenth centuries, a significantly earlier date than that of the Sanskrit Virasaiva works of Vijayanagara. The principle Sanskrit works in question are the Viramahesvaracarasaroddharabhasya , otherwise traditionally known as the Somanathabhasya , the authorship of which I will discuss below; the ´Saivaratnakara of Jyotirnatha; and the Viramahesvaracarasa ˙ngraha of Nilakantha Naganatha. Each of these Viramahesvara texts, in turn, contains citations from earlier (some likely Kalamukha) ´Saiva scriptures, which in many cases match quite closely, barring the usual accretion of textual variants. The contemporary Telugu corpus consists primarily of the Telugu works attributed to Palkurik˘e Somanatha: namely, the Basavapuranamu , Panditaradhyacaritramu , and Caturvedasaramu 7 The ´Sivatattvasaramu attributed to Mallik¯arjuna Panditar¯adhya merits consideration here as well, although most likely dates to a slightly earlier period (a twelfth century dating would be plausible) First, by bringing these two bodies of textuality into dialogue, I present the evidence that the Sanskrit Somanathabhasya has been correctly attributed to the same Palkurik˘e Somanatha who is responsible for the three Telugu works mentioned above. As a result, as both text–internal citational evidence and the attribution of authorship to Palkurik˘e Somanatha are consistent with each other, we can assert with relatively strong confidence that the Somanathabhasya was composed in the thirteenth century at Srisailam. The fact that the Sanskrit and Telugu works in question overlap so pervasively in tone and content, moreover, further allows us to reject the hypothesis, entrenched as it is, that early vernacular Virasaivism arose in strict opposition to Sanskritic ´Saivism. Second, I will conclude by outlining the principle points of continuity between the Viramahesvara corpus and the ´Saivism of the ´Saiva Age, demonstrating that on textual grounds early Virasaivism was directly indebted to its predecessors in the Deccan, and did not constitute an “overthrow” of its legacy, nor a revolution of any kind. While the Viramahesvaras drew on a number of 6 In addition, political controversies concerning the Li ˙ngayat and Pañcacarya or Pañcapitha communities has obscured matters further, but that state of affairs cannot be adequately addressed in the present article. In a forthcoming article to be published in the new journal NESAR ( New Explorations in South Asia Research ), I will further disambiguate the Viramahesvara corpus of texts from the origins of the Pañcacarya or Pañcapitha parampara some centuries later by tracing the roots of the latter to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries 7 To clarify, what I refer to here as the Caturvedasaramu is the first portion of the work printed under this title, up through the subheading in the printed edition, “´Sivanubhavas utravivaramu”. As I will discuss, I suspect that the second portion of this work, given its seeming indebtedness to the Anubhavas utra of Mayideva or similar material, along with the Anubhavasaramu , are more likely later accretions to Somanatha’s oeuvre.

Religions 2021 , 12 , 222 4 of 24 distinct textual currents from the ´Saiva Age, I focus here on their substantial inheritance from the ´Sivadharmasastra , with particular attention to the concept of the ja ˙ngama , the human devotee as moving sivali ˙nga 2. Dating the Viramahesvara Corpus: Palkurik˘e Somanatha and the Authorship of the Soman athabh asya As I have argued at greater length in other venues ( Fisher 2019 ), the tradition we now define as Virasaivism, or Li ˙ngayatism, was not a new religious movement founded by the poet-saint Basava in the twelfth century 8 Our earliest texts that mention Basava and his exploits—the Telugu (and Sanskrit) works of Palkurik˘e Somanatha, and the Kannada Ragal.˘egalu of Harihara—can only be dated as early as the thirteenth century, and moreover speak to a wider discursive world that pre-existed Basava himself, in which he merely participated as one historical agent among many 9 Indeed, both Harihara and Somanatha, from opposite sides of the Deccan, speak to a remarkably similar religious worldview, both depicting, for example, the historical ´sarana s or Virasaiva saints as incarnations of ´Siva’s celestial attendants, the Pramathaganas 10 Inscriptional evidence confirms, moreover, that Viramahesvara terminology was used prior to and far afield from the city of Kalyana where Basava served as dandanayaka to Bijjala of the Kalachuris. In other words, we have no plausible historical grounds for situating a singular religious revolution in twelfth-century Kalyana. Rather, the Virasaivas in residence there during Basava’s day were already part of a greater trans-Deccan network spanning from southern Maharashtra through coastal Andhra and, if we trust inscriptional evidence, likely penetrating further south into Tamil Nadu as well 11 Nevertheless, although the Viramahesvaras may well have traversed an extensive geographical network by the thirteenth century, our surviving Sanskrit textual evidence from the period stems from one single location: the extended domain of the ´Saiva pilgrimage site at Srisailam. While we might hypothesize that these texts circulated beyond their locale of composition, whether or not similar texts were composed elsewhere, we can assert with confidence that Srisailam was something of a discursive epicenter, so to speak, in which the thirteenth-century Viramahesvaras codified their doctrine and ritual practice. How, then, do we know that the texts I have identified above are Viramahesvara works composed at Srisailam at a relatively early date? First of all, as I have discussed in greater length in ( Fisher 2019 ), the texts generally declare their location of composition and religious affiliation fairly explicitly. In the ´Saivaratnakara , Jyotirnatha traces his family lineage’s origin to Saurashtra, apparently prior to the demolition of the Somanatha temple by Mahmud of Ghazni. He continues, in the same context, to describe the temple that he and his family had maintained after relocating to Srisailam. In the Viramahesvaracarasa ˙ngraha , Nilakantha Naganatha pays homage to Mallikarjuna, the form of ´Siva at the temple at Srisailam, and proceeds to venerate a number of early Virasaiva figures writing in Sanskrit or south Indian vernaculars, none of whom can be dated, based on our evidence, after the thirteenth century. In both of these works, as well as in the Somanathabhasya , the words Viramahesvara and Virasaiva appear as terms of self-reference to the community in 8 In fact, by no means did all premodern Kannada Virasaiva texts view Basava as the central figure of the tradition. One key example is the ´Sunyasampadan˘e , which granted pride of place to Allama Prabhu. Likewise, the figures now known as the Pañcac¯aryas did appear in early modern Kannada texts as well. Nevertheless, the idea of Basava as the leader of an Indian Protestant Reformation—indeed, the Indian Martin Luther—had gained traction by the mid-twentieth century not only as a scholarly fashion but as itself a point of theological doctrine. This emergent tradition, which I have called Protestant Li ˙ngayatism ( Fisher 2019 ), needs to be understood within scholarship as itself a religious phenomenon. It is also crucial to note that the vacana s or poetic utterances attributed to Basava and other early poet saints cannot be taken as reliable documentary evidence concerning the origins of Virasaivism. See Chandra Shobhi ( 2005 ) for a discussion of the later canonization of the vacana corpus during the Vijayanagara period, connected with the rise of what the author terms “Virakta” Virasaiva identity, as well as of the twentieth-century editorial history of the vacana s 9 On the Ragal.˘egalu of Harihara, see Ben-Herut ( 2018 ). 10 Gil Ben-Herut, personal communication 11 See also Ben-Herut ( 2015 ) on the transregional dimensions of ´Saiva bhakti . In my forthcoming monograph, I examine the category of translation as a vehicle for understanding how regional Vira´saivisms took root across the southern half of the subcontinent, as, for example, was the case in Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra.

Religions 2021 , 12 , 222 5 of 24 question. All three are structured primarily as nibandha s (compendiums, or anthologies) of Sanskrit scriptural citations, while the Somanathabhasya also elaborates on the verses cited with extended prose commentary. Incidentally, the Telugu works of Palkurik˘e Somanatha also contain all of these features, incorporating the self-referential term “Viramahesvara”, extended descriptions of the ´Saiva institutions of thirteenth-century Srisailam, and, as we will see, lengthy anthologized passages of Sanskrit citations Who, then, is Palkurik˘e Somanatha, and why would his dual authorship of works in Telugu and Sanskrit be so significant for our scholarly portrait of Virasaivism? Scholars of bhakti traditions of Hinduism will be intimately acquainted with Palkurik˘e Somanatha for the hagiographies of the early Virasaiva saints or sarana s he crafts in his vernacular Telugu works. From the perspective of Telugu literary historians, Somanatha’s verse style stands in stark contrast to the school of high Telugu literature that more strictly emulated the idiom of Sanskrit kavya 12 In short, his writings are marshaled in support of a view that the vernacular in South Asia emerged from the popular religious sentiment of devotion, rather than from the elite courtly world of Sanskrit literature. Based on the portrait of Somanatha’s writings as vernacular hagiography, his works—like those of his near contemporary writing in Kannada, Harihara—have been read almost exclusively in dialogue with the lives of the Nayan ¯ ars as recounted in the Tamil P˘eriyapuranam Indeed, such parallels do exist. But, as we will see, by reducing Palkurik˘e Somanatha’s discursive context exclusively to the P˘eriyapuranam , scholars to date have lost sight of the data that allows us to contextualize more precisely the ´Saiva worldview from which he wrote Among works attributed to him, Somanatha is best known for the Basavapuranamu , which narrates not only the life story of Basava, as the name would suggest, but also numerous of his purported contemporaries. The Basavapuranamu has been adopted as a principle source for classroom teaching and scholarship on the Virasaiva tradition because it can be accessed easily by English speakers through the translation of Velcheru Narayana Rao and Gene Roghair. This Telugu epic in dvipada meter has often been upheld in scholarship as an example of purely vernacular, devotional narrative—disconnected, in other words, from anything remotely Sanskritic and from tantra as a category 13 Palkurik˘e Somanatha is also generally accepted as having composed the Panditaradhyacaritramu , a second Telugu prabandha on the life of Mallikarjuna Panditaradhya, to whom authorship of the Telugulanguage ´Sivatattvasaramu is attributed 14 Indeed, we can be fairly confident that the same author crafted both of these two Telugu works, and in fact, a third as well: Somanatha tells us explicitly at the outset of his Panditaradhyacaritramu that he had previously completed two Telugu works entitled the Basavapuranamu and the Caturvedasaramu , or “Essence of the Four Vedas”. Speaking about himself in the second person, Palkurik˘e Somanatha declares the following: You admirably composed the Basavapurana ; In the Basavapurana narrative, you recounted as history ( itihasa ) The stories of the Ganas, those celebrated ancient devotees. You composed the Caturvedasaramu with the 12 According to the canonical portrait of Telugu literary history, early Telugu literature was divided into a more elite and Sanskritized ( marga ) register on one hand, and a more popular and accessible ( desi ) current on the other. See for instance ( Rao and Roghair 1990 , p. 5) for further detail Palkurik˘e Somanatha’s works, and ´Saiva bhakti literature more broadly, are generally associated with the desi current, and are thus viewed as intrinsically anti-Sanskritic and as intended for popular audiences. Nevertheless, an important corrective has recently been raised by Jones ( 2018 ), who complicates this division by showing that Palkurik˘e Somanatha was deeply acquainted with formal Telugu literary conventions and makes use of such literary devices in his Telugu works. As this article also hopes to make clear, Somanatha’s Telugu works, as well as other Telugu ´Saiva works such as the ´Sivatattvasaramu , are anything but anti-Sanskritic 13 See Rao and Roghair ( 1990 ). For instance, “Somanatha’s rejection of Sanskritic, brahminic, literary conventions was complete” (p. 6); “Somanatha emphasized his opposition to the brahminic tradition by explicitly stating that he never associated with bhavis, non-Virasaivas” (p. 7). On the second point, based on our combined intertextual evidence, such statements are not evidence of “opposition to the brahminic tradition”. Rather, Viramahesvaras strictly avoided contact with non-´Saivas, considering them to be virtually untouchable. Caste, Sanskrit, and the Vedas are not at all under contention in such a statement 14 Although Panditaradhya is also accepted by the Pañcacarya or Pañcapitha parampara as one of the original five teachers ( acarya s), that later hagiographical portrait of Panditaradhya is beyond the scope of this article.

Religions 2021 , 12 , 222 6 of 24 best of heroic devotion ( virabhakti ) in accordance with the Vedas 15 Although Somanatha has professed his own authorship here of the Caturvedasaramu , its title might give some readers pause: the “Essence of the Four Vedas”, some might suspect, is the polar opposite, at least according to conventional wisdom, of what motivated Virasaivism as a religious “movement”. Yet, not only can we infer, pending further examination, that Palkurik˘e Somanatha did author the Caturvedasaramu , but we must acknowledge his self-professed motive in doing so: Somanatha authored this vernacular work of ´Saiva doctrine, he tells us, to establish the orthodox Vaidika status of what he understands as virabhakti . Indeed, this sentiment accords precisely with the view articulated in the Basavapuranamu , where we read that devotion to ´Siva is inculcated in the Vedas themselves: “O Basava, proclaim the devotion that has been derived from the essence of the Vedas and ´sastras” 16 Moreover, we have little reason to suspect that Somanatha’s genuflection to the Vedas was intended disingenuously, or as a means of coopting a textual authority he viewed as foreign to ´Saivism. To the contrary, by the thirteenth century in the Andhra country, it would have been quite normative among ´Saivas to interpret the Vedas as a quintessentially ´Saiva scriptural corpus, in no way contradictory with the ¯ Agamic and Atimargic literature of the ´Saiva Age. For instance, the name of Somanatha’s “ Caturvedasaramu ” was by no means unprecedented. Rather, it was likely intended to evoke the earlier C aturvedatatparyasa ˙ngraha of Haradatta, a garland of Sanskrit verses in the vasantatilaka meter intended to illustrate that ´Siva is the essential meaning ( tatparya ) of the four Vedas, cited frequently in the Somanathabhasya 17 Evidently, we cannot casually presume that the Virasaivism of Palkurik˘e Somanatha intends in any manner to upend the authority of the Vedas as scripture Further, we would be remiss in presuming that for Somanatha the vernacular Telugu was in any way divorced from Sanskrit. Contrary to popular perception, his linguistic register is highly Sanskritized, even preserving the sort of lengthy Sanskrit compounds generally taken to be the purview of courtly Telugu literature. For example, to indicate his distaste for interacting with non-´Saivas, Somanatha describes himself in the Basavapuranamu with extended Sanskrit compounding as “avoiding contact such as dialogue with and respect for non-´Saivas” ( bhavijanasamadaranasambhasanadisamsargaduragu ˙mda ), and encapsulates his reverence for Vedic canons of textuality in phrases such as “in accordance with all the Vedas and Puranas, and the established doctrine of the secret of the stainless li ˙nga ” ( akalam . kalim . garahasyasiddham . tasakalavedapuranasammatam . baina ) ( Basavapuranamu p. 7). Moreover, all of Somanatha’s vernacular works are interlaced with direct Sanskrit quotations from Vedic and ´Saiva source material. Both the Panditaradhaycaritramu and Caturvedasaramu are heavily inflected with long doctrinal digests of Sanskrit source material, as will be discussed below, but Sanskrit citations appear in the Basavapuranamu as well. Unfortunately, these quotations are not necessarily apparent to those reading Rao and Roghair’s translation, as the English rendering and footnotes may obscure the shift in language 18 15 Palkurik˘e Somanatha, Panditaradhyacaritramu , p. 3: basavapurana m˘oppa ˙mga racimcitivi, basavapurana prabam.dham.bunamdu prathita puratana bhaktagananukathanambul itihasaghatana ˙m g urcitivi, vara virabhakti savaidikambuganu viracimcitivi saturvedasaramana 16 ( Rao and Roghair 1990 , p. 62). Similar examples are abundant, and do not need to be cited here 17 Haradatta’s work has often been (either erroneously or synonymously) titled by its editor and as a result, by subsequent scholarship, as the ´Srutisuktimala , with the title Catuvedatatparyacandrika attributed to a later commentary by ´Sivali˙ngabhupala . Somanatha, however, is consistent in referring to this text by the shorthand Tatparyasa ˙ngraha . The print edition of this work by P. A. Ramasamy with commentary is incomplete. See also IFP transcript no. 1059 for the root text. Somanatha’s lack of antipathy toward the Vedas also raises the question, of course, of his caste status prior to ´Saiva initiation and his attitude toward non-´Saiva brahmin communities. While I will discuss this matter further in my forthcoming monograph, it is worth remarking for the moment that throughout the Somanathabhasya , Somanatha refers to matters of ritual practice that he believes to be current in various ´sakhas 18 See, for example, Basavapuranamu p. 10: mrdumahattvamu ˙m ganamini b˘omku lana ˙mga ˙m badu ˙m “kavayah. kim. na pasyanti” yanuta yanucu ˙m gukavula gitunam. bucci perci vinutimtu ˙m datkathavidha m˘ettu lanina Rao and Roghair ( 1990 ) translate, p. 45, without indicating the direct quotation in the footnotes: “It is said that a poet can see everything. But that does not hold true if one is ignorant of Mrda’s greatness. Thus I ignore all the bad poets and praise Basava with vigor. This is how the story goes”. The Sanskrit quotation kavayah. kim. na pasyanti is found in the Mahasubhasitasa˙ngraha . On p. 57, although indicating the quotation in a footnote, they translate: “´Sruti has commended it as all seeing”, leaving the casual reader unaware of the Sanskrit citation visvatas caksur uta .

Religions 2021 , 12 , 222 7 of 24 Stylistically, in other words, all of Palkurik˘e Somanatha’s works give every indication of an authorial imagination well versed in the Sanskrit language. Yet, we can find even more conclusive evidence of shared authorship by directly comparing key passages from the Caturvedasaramu , Panditaradhyacaritramu , and the Sanskrit Somanathabhasya that contain direct and unmistakable parallels. In fact, despite linguistic differences, the texts harmonize to a remarkable degree, such that the overlap in content is far too significant to be explained by coincidence. To begin with a particularly striking example, let us examine the ma ˙ngala verse of the Somanathabhasya , which invokes Basava simultaneously as a human incarnation of ´Siva’s bull, and leader of the Pramathaganas, Vrsabha or Nandikesvara: May Lord ( rajah ) Basava surpass all, venerable ( p ujah ) for his fortitude and stainlessness, The seed ( bijah ) of shining devotion, keeping the company ( samajah ) of the Pramathaganas Abiding ( varti ) within an expansive lineage that removes the affliction ( arti ) of the humble, His limitless fame ( kirti ) established across the directions, incarnation ( murti ) of the Lord of Bulls 19 In both halves of this benedictory verse, Somanatha employs a four-part rhyme scheme of a sort that is rarely encountered in Sanskrit literature but is not at all unexpected in Telugu dvipada verse. In fact, not only do Palkurik˘e Somanatha’s Telugu works make ample use of this device throughout, but Somanatha is particularly fond of the second rhyming pattern, often making use of the very same rhyming words. To name a single example, the Panditaradhyacaritramu also opens with an invocation of Basava, incarnation of Vrsabha, as the one “who had accumulated fame ( kirti ) and merit through the form ( m urti ) of the auspicious guru, dwelling ( varti ) in bliss, pulsating ( sph urti ) with the end of scripture” The content of the verses may differ, but the rhymes are unambiguous parallels. Moreover, the precise same rhyming words appear on multiple occasions in the Basavapuranamu as well 20 With the evidence presented thus far, it may remain plausible to suggest that the Somanathabhasya was simply invoking the literary fashions of the day, imitating either Palkurik˘e Somanatha directly or the broader conventions of early Telugu prosody. Nevertheless, the overlapping content is far more pervasive, including some particularly striking doctrinal passages reproduced in both the Sanskrit Somanathabhasya and the Telugu Caturvedasaramu . For instance, both texts include an enumeration of a closely matched set of Upanisadic scriptures, which both texts refer to as “´Sakha Upanisads”, the property of distinct lineages ( sakha ) of Vedic transmission 21 It is worth noting that the term sakhopanisad 19 Somanathabhasya : jayatu basavarajah. sthaulyanairmalyap ujah. pramathaganasamajah. prollasadbhaktibijah. | prahrtavinamad¯arti-sphayadamnayavarti sthiradigamitakirtih. srivrsadhisam urtih. || 20 Panditaradhaycaritramu , p. 1: srigurum urti marjitapunyakirti | nagamamtasph urti nanandavarti | Note that the Caturvedasaramu , p. 1, also begins with a (Sanskrit) invocation of that incarnated Pramathagana who is a portion of Vrsabha and a Viramahesvara ( vrsabham.saviramahesvaraya ). For the same rhyme scheme, see also Basavapuranamu p. 1: baramakrpam urti bhaktajanarti, haru ˙m drijagatsph urti nanamdavarti; Basavapuranamu p. 5: bhuvanap¯avanam urti budhacakravarti, pravimalakirti sadbhaktiprap urti Caturvedasaramu , p. 14: vedamayu ˙ mdu vedavinutakirti, divyalimgam urti bhavyatejassph urti. Further similar examples can be found 21 The list in the Caturvedasaramu is intentionally incomplete (as indicated by the word adi ). Note that the two passages are clearly parallel but not identical, either suggesting the two were composed without the intention of fidelity to a canonical list, or that some textual drift has occured. As the Somanathabhasya reads: tat tac chrutibhedam aha—´srirudra-bas.kala-svetasvatara-brhad¯aran.yamadhyandinamgirasa-katha-brahmabindupañcabrahmatmagarbha-katy¯ayana-´sukla-kalagnirudra-kapala-sosiya-galava-vajasaneya-jabala-vaisesa-hamsa-pavamana-kaivalya-bodhayana- sivasam . kalpa-narayana-kandava-atharvanasikha-paippalaya-vartantareya-paundarika-dundubha-dandila ˙nguli-mand. uka-padakrama- s ukalavadika-´satha-paramavadhikarana-vidyavaraha-caraka-hiranyakesiya-sukleya-manaveya-markandeya-mardaveya-kaideya-carcaka- ´sravana-sutardhinaya-bilva-pracyaka-mudgala-brahmadasvalayana-devars.i-sa ˙nkhyayaniya-maitrayaniya-´sama-tvarita-danta-narayaniyasatya-satyasadi-saunaki-´samya-barhaspatya-maundikahva itisakhopanisadadisu prakalpyate | Note that the manuscript tradition preserves numerous variants in this list Caturvedasaramu , p 10: srirudra-jabala-svetasvatara-brhadaranya-taitriyamadiga ˙mga brahmabimduvu pam . cabrahmatmagarbha-katyayani-sukla-kalagnirudra-kapala-s osiya-gala-vajasaneya-sam . dilya-prasna-susam . kha-ham . sa-pavamana-kaivalyabaskala sa-sivasamkalpa-narayana-kamdavadi sakhalamdupanisaccayamamd’ . . .

Religions 2021 , 12 , 222 8 of 24 itself is not especially common. By employing this term, Somanatha might be taken as revealing that for him, Vedic scripture was not an abstract canon but was embedded within a living sociology of distinct Vedic brahminical communities. Furthermore, both works supply identical proof texts for the incarnation of Vrs.abha as Basava: “I will become your son, by the name of Nandin, not born from a human womb” 22 Perhaps the most remarkable of these convergences is that the Somanathabhasya and Caturvedasaramu provide a precisely identical Prakrit etymology of the name of Basava, which makes use of identical grammatical rules and examples from vernacular Telugu usage. Drawing on the Prakrit grammar of Vararuci, 23 Somanatha makes the case that the name Basava can be derived systematically from the Sanskrit Vrsabha (“bull”), as rules of substitution render the letters b and v interchangeable ( vrkarasya bakaradeso bhavati, vabayor abheda iti; pavargatrtiyaksaramu bakaramu pakarambuvalanam ), and the sibilants of various classes are notoriously collapsed into “sa” in Prakrit and several vernaculars ( sasoh. sa iti s utrat sakarasya sakaradeso bhavati; sasoh. sa yanu vyakaranasutramunam ). Hence, “vr.” can become “ba”, “sa” can become “sa”, and “bha” can become “va”, transforming the Sanskrit Vrsabha into Basava. Similarly, one may demonstrate Basava’s ontological connection with ´Siva, by deriving in a similar manner the name Basava from the first three syllables of ´Siva’s name as Pasupati, “lord of beasts” ( pasupa ). Both texts proceed, then, to illustrate this phonetic transformation with identical examples, such as the Sanskrit word kuthara , meaning an axe, and the Telugu equivalent, guddali , ( kutharakuddalat¯amarasadipadesu . . . ; guddalatamarasakutharamul’ varusa guddaliyu ˙m damarayu g˘odali ) 24 It is undeniable, at this point, that the Somanathabhasya and Caturvedasaramu share some direct relation of dependence, but could one text have been written in direct imitation of the other? For multiple reasons, forgery seems implausible. For instance, the Somanathabhasya makes no effort to stake out a reputation for itself through attribution to Palkurik˘e Somanatha. In fact, the author’s name is mentioned nowhere in the text. Despite their substantial intertextuality, moreover, the two texts are not precise matches: that is, neither the Somanathabhasya nor the Caturvedasaramu seems intended as a translation of the other. While concerned with several identical themes—for example, both deal with the obligatory Viramahesvara topics of sacred ash ( vibh uti ), rudraksa beads, and the bearing of the personal li ˙nga —the structure of the texts is not identical. Moreover, while a substantial number of the Sanskrit citations in the Caturvedasaramu also appear in the Somanathabhasya , an equally substantial number do not, and vice versa. As a result, neither text would have been sufficient to provide the source material for the other If anything, Somanatha’s Panditaradhaycaritramu overlaps even more pervasively with the contents of the Somanathabhasya , even if the overlapping content is not so readily memorable. Structured as a garland of narratives of the lives of Mallikarjuna Panditaradhya and other saints, the Panditaradhycaritramu has, like the Basavapuranamu , been represented as a strictly vernacular and prototypically devotional bhakti literary work. While very little work has been done on the text within the Western academy, it is best known for its occasional polyglossic use of multiple vernaculars (Kannada, Marathi, and Tamil), and 22 The Somanathabhasya reads: tava putro bhavisyami nandinama tv ayonijah. Caturvedasaramu , p. 4: tava putr o bhavisyami. Both texts further contextualize the name Vrsabha in relation to the practice of touching the testicles ( vrsa ) of the bull ( vrsabha ) outside of a ´Saiva temple 23 On the Prakrit grammar of Vararuci, see Ollett ( 2017 ) 24 Further, we learn, something similar takes place when the Sanskrit words kuddala (spade) and tamarasa (lotus) are transformed into the Telugu g˘odali and damarayu , respectively Somanathabhasya : ko basava iti idanim . kaliyuge sivabhaktim uddhartum . basavabhidheyena vrsabha eva jatah. | vrsabhasya basavanamakatvam. kasmat karanad asit | vrkarasya bakaradeso bhavati, vabayor abheda iti | sasoh. sa iti s utrat sakarasya sakaradeso bhavati | vah. pavargasyeti vararucyas utrad bakarasya vakaradeso bhavati | etadvrsabhaksaratadbhavad basava iti nama vaksyate | pas un patiti pasupah. vrsabhah., tat pasupatyaksaratrayam. ca sambhavati | kutharakuddalatamarasadipadesu tattadadyaksaranam. tattadvargatrtiyaksaradeso bhavati | yatha kutharasyandhrabhasayam. gakaradir bhavati | kuddalasyasyandhrabhasayam. gakaradir bhavati | tamarasasyandhrabhasayam dakaradir bhavati | tathaiva pasupatinamadyaksarapakarasya bakaradeso bhavati sasoh. sa iti s utrat | sakarasya sakaradeso bhavati | pakarasya bakaradeso bhavati vah. pavargasyeti vararucis utrat | vakarasya bakaradeso bhavati | ata eva pasupetyaksaratrayasya basavetyaksaratrayam siddham . bhavati | Caturvedasaramu , p. 5: pasupati vrsabhambu pasupati paramumdu yana ˙mganu j˘ellu subhaksaramulu | basavavakyambu pavargatrtiyaksaramu bakaramu pakarambuvalana ˙m baraga ˙m guddalatamarasakutharamul varusa guddaliyu ˙m damarayu g˘odali yanukriyanu sasoh. sa yanu vyakaranas utramuna ˙m k˘oppadu sakaramunu sakaramuna naho vayu tats utramuna vakaramunu pakarambunanu domcu ˙m b ˘olupuhir ¯ a basavanamam . cidiyu lim . gabhavyamaguta basavalim . gahvayam . b ˘oppu basavalim . ga.

Religions 2021 , 12 , 222 9 of 24 secondarily for the chapter in which Panditaradhya journeys to meet Basava, only to find that the latter has fled Kalyana after the assassination of Bijjala. Anything more than a surface level perusal of the text, however, makes clear that the author aimed to convey Virasaiva doctrine as much as narrative, and was as thoroughly acquainted with Sanskrit as with Telugu. For instance, in the first prakarana , we find several extended doctrinal discussions, structured as garlands of Sanskrit citations within a Telugu grammatical medium Many of these discussions, moreover, are structurally parallel to sections of the Somanathabhasya , and the verse quotations often run in almost the same sequence in both texts. It is the “almost” here, again, that is key: in most cases, we find just enough variation between the two—a verse missing or an extra citation supplied here or there in either text, or different attributions of sources for the same citation—to be confident that one text could not have been simply copied from the other. The doctrinal digests in the Panditaradhyacaritramu concern the “greatness” (Telugu: mahima , Sanskrit: mahatmya ) of sacred ash ( vibh uti ), rudraksa beads, padodaka , the worship of the li ˙nga ( li ˙ngarcana ), the bearing of the li ˙nga , and prasada , all of which are discussed in the Somanathabhasya as well The sum total of the evidence is abundant, and only a fraction can be published here for want of space. I have, however, exemplified this citational pattern below in Appendix A , with the original Telugu and Sanskrit of a parallel section from the Panditaradhyacaritramu and the Somanathabhasya What, then, do we make of these pervasive textual parallels in multiple languages? By far the most parsimonious solution—which I believe to be the strongest argument, based on the evidence—is quite simply that all of these works were composed by the same author. In order to confirm the plausibility of dating the Somanathabhasya to the thirteenth century, however, we must further clarify that no textual material contained within the work precludes such a dating. The same, incidentally, must be ascertained for the ´Saivaratnakara of Jyotirnatha and the Viramahesvaracarasa ˙ngraha of Nilakantha Naganatha, the other two works I associate with the early Viramahesvara corpus. In short, none of the Sanskrit Viramahesvara works cite any source texts that would prohibit dating the Somanathabhasya and ´Saivaratnakara to the thirteenth century, and the Viramahesvaracarasa ˙ngraha to the early fourteenth century 25 Among readily datable Sanskrit sources in the Somanathabhasya , we find citations from the Somasambhupaddhati of 1048/9 CE, the ca. eleventh-century Vayaviyasam . hita , and the mid twelfth-century S utasam . hita 26 In the ´Saivaratnakara , we further find an intriguing mention of the fourfold typology of yoga, which Jason Birch has recently historicized to this time period 27 It is worth noting that none of the Viramahesvara authors cite the Sanskrit ´Srisailakhanda , which Reddy ( 2014 ) has proposed to date to the thirteenth century on stylistic grounds 28 Also worthy of note is that while these works are intimately familiar with the ´Saiva religious landscape at Srisailam, none makes mention of Mallikarjuna’s consort as Bhramaramba, who seems to make her debut on the stage of Telugu literature around the turn of the fifteenth century 29 25 We can state conclusively that the ´Saivaratnakara postdates the Somanathabhasya , because it incorporates its commentarial prose along with shared verse citations 26 On the Somasambhupaddhati or Kriyakandakram¯avali , authored by Somasambhu, pontiff of the Golagi Matha, of present day Gurgi, located in Rewa District in Madhya Pradesh, see for instance Sanderson ( 2012–2013 ), p. 21. On the Vayaviyasam . hita , see Barois ( 2013 ). On the dating of the S utasam . hita , see Cox ( 2016 ). 27 ( ´Saivaratnakara 1.39: tanmantrayogahathayogalayakhyayogasrirajayogavidhitah. paramarthavedi | bh ulokapavanasamagatasambhum urtih satkirtip urasasip urnajagatkarandah. || Jason Birch ( 2019 ) has argued that the Amaraughaprabodha , which was a foundational source text for the fifteenth-century Hathapradipika , should be understood as one of the earliest texts to teach a fourfold system of yoga. Drawing on the eleventhto twelfth-century exchange of yogic ideas between ´Saivism and Buddhism, exemplified by the Amrtasiddhi , the short recension of the Amaraugaprabodha likely predates the thirteenth-century Dattatreyayogasastra . Other texts that mention the fourfold typology of yoga include the Marathi Vivekadarpana ( Birch 2020 ) and Vivekasindhu , which are generally dated to the thirteenth century, and the fourteenth-century ´Sar˙ngadharapaddhati (Jason Birch, personal communication) 28 See Reddy ( 2014 ), p. 103. Somanatha does however cite a certain ´Sriparvatamahatmya 29 One excellent example is Gaurana, author of the Navanathacaritramu , whose floruit Jamal Jones dates to the late-fourteenth and early-fifteenth centuries ( Jones 2018 ). Gaurana’s mention of Bhramaramba ( Jones 2020 ) is quite in keeping with the rise to power of the Bhiksavrtti Matha, whose lineage never receives mention during the earlier Viramahesvara period but is famously invoked by Srinatha ( Rao and Shulman 2012 , p. 15).

Religions 2021 , 12 , 222 10 of 24 Some confusion may be generated by the fact that the ´Saivaratnakara and Viramahesvaracarasa ˙ngraha cite a text by the name of Kriyasara (“Essence of Rituals”), a title that is most famously associated with a Vijayanagara-period (perhaps fifteenthor sixteenth-century) ritual compendium hybridized with a ´Saktivisistadvaita commentary on the Brahmas utras 30 Not only does the Kriyasara as cited by the Viramahesvaras, in contrast, contain no discernibly Virasaiva or Vedantic content, but citations attributed to that name fail to match the Vijayanagara text 31 Succinctly, the Kriyasara in question is an entirely different work In fact, none of the Viramahesvara texts in question contain ´Saktivisistadvaita content, and generally invoke the term Vedanta exclusively as a reference to the Upanisads. That these three works—the Somanathabhasya , ´Saivaratnakara , and Viramahesvaracarasa ˙ngraha —are an interconnected corpus of textuality, moreover, is underscored by the fact that they share a common repertoire of citational texts, a number of which are rarely cited under the same names in other domains of Sanskrit intellectual history, some to my knowledge never otherwise identified in any source to date Among the shared scriptural canon of the Viramahesvaras, the most foundational and frequently cited source texts include the ´Sivadharmasastra , Vatulatantra , ´Sivarahasya , Li ˙nga Purana , and, in the ´Saivaratnakara and Viramahesvaracarasa ˙ngraha , the Viratantra . It must be noted carefully that the recensions of the V¯atula and Viratantra cited are distinct from ¯ Agamic works commonly cited in the Vijayanagara period. Text names that are never mentioned within the Viramahesvara corpus, but that are ubiquitous in Vijayanagar period compositions, include the Vatulottara , Vatulasuddhakhya , and Viragamottara 32 In addition to these theologically significant works, Viramahesvara authors share a pattern of citing a number of less widely circulating works, including: the Isanasamhita ; the non-Vijayanagara Kriyasara ; the Kriyatilaka ; the Kalikakhanda (presumably of the Skanda Purana ); the Brahmagita ; the Bhim¯agama ; the Manava Purana ; and the Li ˙ngasara 33 Outside of the Viramahesvara corpus, one of the texts’ closest discursive neighbors seems to be the ´Saradatilaka , sharing a number of these sources 34 Although I cannot possibly document all of the voluminous points of textual overlap in this article, including numerous shared citations, suffice it to say that the intertextuality between the Sanskrit Viramahesvara works is so strong as to be patently obvious when the works are subjected to a close comparative analysis I would caution, however, that there are a number of works attributed to Palkurik˘e Somanatha that I have not included in this study, and in some cases, I currently harbor significant doubts that Somanatha could have composed them 35 Two of the latter are worth discussing more explicitly, because their content deviates significantly from the discursive norms across languages of the “Viramahesvara moment”. Most notable among 30 The term ´Saktivisistadvaita, or “nondualism of ´Siva as qualified by ´Sakti”, contrasts conceptually with the ´Srivaisnava use of the term Visistadvaita as the former intends a non-monistic brand of nondualism influenced by the Trika ´Saivism of Kashmir 31 As of yet, I have only identified one citation attributed to a Kriyasara in the ´Saivaratnakara that corresponds to what we understand as the Vijayanagara period text by that name: vibh utir bhasitam . bhasma ksaram . rakseti bhasmanah. | bhavanti pañca namani hetubhih. pañcabhir bhr.sam || aisvaryakaranad bh utih. bhasma sarvaghabhartsanat | bhasanad bhasitam. bhasma ksaranat paramapadam | ( Kriyasara , vol. 2, p. 14; ´Saivaratnakara 7. 79–80). As bhasma is a ubiquitous topic across ´Saiva lineages, this parallel is not especially surprising. And in fact, this is a rather common citation, also appearing in the Brhajjabalopanisad and the Siddhantasikhamani . Both the Somanathabhasya and the Kriyasara attribute it to the Jabalopanisad or Brhajjabalopanisad , which thus appears to be the source through which it entered Viramahesvara discourse. While several other citations are attributed by the ´Saivaratnakara to a Kriyasara , these do not appear in the published edition 32 Further textual work on the available manuscripts of these texts will be needed to determine if the early recensions survive in any form outside of the quotations in the Viramahesvara corpus. While these works have been redacted significantly over the centuries, we know little as of yet about how and when these transformations took place 33 The Bhimagama may potentially be related to the Bhimasam . hita , although I know of no other citations under the name Bhimagama itself. The Somanathabhasya does not cite the Li ˙ngasara . The Somanathabhasya is also distinctive in its citation of a Baskalasamhita and Bhrgusamhita . I have been able to confirm so far that the Panditaradhyacaritramu also shares citations of the Bhimagama , Manava Purana , and the Vatulatantra . References to what ought to be the Kalikakhanda also appear, but the Telugu editor or manuscript tradition has emended this to Kasikakhanda , due to the similarity of the letters sa and la in Telugu script 34 The ´Saradatilaka is likely fairly close to the Viramahesvara corpus in date and region, as Alexis Sanderson has suggested that it was likely composed in Orissa ( Sanderson 2007 ) around the twelfth century ( Sanderson 2009 ). 35 Other works attributed to Palkurik˘e Somanatha that are not examined here include: Pañcaprakaragadya , Namaskaragadya , Aksara˙nkagadya , Astottarasatanamagadya , Basavapañcaka , Basavastaka , Trividhali ˙ngastaka , Basavod¯aharan.a , Vrsadhipasataka , and a Rudrabhasya (apparently not surviving) The Somanathabhasya does, interestingly, cite a certain Rudrabhasya , but authorship is not mentioned.

Religions 2021 , 12 , 222 11 of 24 these is the Anubhavasaramu , a fourth major Telugu work often attributed to Palkurik˘e Somanatha. The category of anubhava (experience) is already heavily thematized in Virasaiva circles by this time in the western Deccan, but is more typically invoked in early Marathi literature than in Telugu Anubhava does not appear as a technical doctrinal term in the Somanathabhasya , ´Saivaratnakara , or Viramahesvaracarasa ˙ngraha . The work currently printed as the Caturvedasaramu , likewise, requires further explication. While I believe the beginning of this print edition to be the work by that name of Palkurik˘e Somanatha, as I have argued above, the second half of this publication consists of a Telugu work structured as an elaboration of Mayideva’s Anubhavas utra 36 We find numerous instances of terminology here, as in the Anubhavas utra , that is highly atypical of Viramahesvara thought: for example, caitanya , unmesa , terminology from Mayideva’s ontology, such as paramatmali ˙nga , bhavali ˙nga , and so forth. Both works rely heavily on the sat.sthala system, which only begins to make a brief appearance by the time of the Viramahesvaracarasa ˙ngraha This conclusion, then—that Palkurik˘e Somanatha is the author of the Sanskrit Somanathabhasya —bears significant ramifications for how we as scholars ought to historicize the genres of South Asian religious discourse and practice that we call bhakti and tantra Indeed, beyond the scope of what can be covered in the present article, the Viramahesvaras shared with the ´Saiva Age distinctive elements of its ritual culture, which are generally not comprised within our academic definitions of bhakti traditions. Such is the case, for instance, with formal tantric rituals of initiation; while this evidence will be discussed elsewhere, it is worth noting for the moment that in both the Basavapuranamu and Caturvedasaramu , Somanatha refers to Viramahesvara initiation as sambhavadiksa 37 In this light, to accept the Somanathabhasya as composed by the very same Palkurik˘e Somanatha who authored the Telugu Basavapuranamu is to cast fundamental doubt on whether the vernacular of Telugu devotional literature ever existed in isolation from contemporary Sanskrit discourse. In turn, we need to acknowledge that, in the eastern Deccan especially, the tantric ´Saivism of the ´Saiva Age was not overthrown by ´Saiva devotional movements. Rather, it exerted a formative influence on the emergence of the ´Saiva communities we classify as bhakti traditions. While these points of continuity are too abundant to enumerate in the present article, I would like to continue by looking closely at one key element that the Viramahesvaras had inherited from their predecessors of the ´Saiva Age: the role of the li ˙nga , both the personal istali˙nga and the ja ˙ngama , the moving li ˙nga , as living ´Saiva devotee 3. Before the Viramahesvaras: Antecedents from the ´Sivadharmasastra Centuries before the coalescence of the Viramahesvara tradition around the thirteenth century, numerous ´Saiva lineages had already carved out an institutional domain at Srisailam. These religious networks spanned not only the central mountain peak, on which the Mallikarjuna Temple is located, but also the wilderness terrain in which it is embedded. Indeed, well before the rise of the Viramahesvaras, numerous religious communities, ´Saiva and otherwise, had established monasteries throughout the extended sacred geography of the “auspicious mountain”. In the thirteenth century, for instance, Srisailam was home to the regional branch of the Golaki Matha of the ´Saiva Siddhantins, 38 who held a dominant share in the transregional pilgrimage site, negotiating periodic alliances with the Kalachuri, C ol ¯ a, and Kakatiya kingdoms ( Inden et al. 2000 ). The eastern Deccan, especially around Srisailam, was also well known for housing Kalamukha lineages of the Simha Paris.ad, who 36 Although insufficient work has as of yet been done on Mayideva, he appears to be the author both of the Anubhavas utra and Visesarthapraka´sika , based on similar identificatory information at the outset of both works. While he may indeed have lived fairly early in Virasaiva history (ca. thirteenth/fourteenth century?), his writings are highly characteristic of a western Deccani Virasaiva context rather than of the Srisailam Viramahesvaras 37 See Rao and Roghair ( 1990 ), p. 271, and Caturvedasaramu , p. 3. What precisely Somanatha might mean by sambhavadiksa is not entirely clear. In the Caturvedasaramu , Somanatha glosses the practice with the citation “vratam etac chambhavam”. This passage, drawn from the Kalagnirudropanisad , is also cited by the Somanathabhasya , and is usually interpreted as referring to the practice of bearing the tripundra 38 For more information about the earlier transregional Golaki Mathas of the ´Saiva Siddhanta, see Sanderson ( 2012–2013 ) and Sears ( 2014 ). On the Golaki Matha in Andhra, see Talbot ( 1987 ).

Religions 2021 , 12 , 222 12 of 24 appear often in the inscriptional record. ´Sakta transmissions of the Kali Krama and the Pascimamnaya were also in evidence 39 Beyond the ´Saiva and ´Sakta-´Saiva fold, Srisailam also fostered a shared Buddhist-´Saiva transmission of yogic practices; indeed, some of our richest understudied textual resources for the early development of Hatha Yoga are in the vernacular languages of the Deccan, especially Marathi and Telugu 40 Given the intense interest it generated across ´Saiva communities, it is no surprise that Srisailam was the site at which the surviving Sanskrit Viramahesvara canon was first articulated. To the contrary, it is precisely the legacy of the ´Saiva Age that made Virasaivism as we know it possible In the preceding discussion, space has only permitted us to scratch the surface of the textual canons that Palkurik˘e Somanatha adapted in composing his Sanskrit and Telugu oeuvre. For example, he evidently felt no qualms about supplying material from the ´Saiva Siddhanta where convenient 41 Other texts cited by Somanatha, as we have seen, seem to have circulated within a more limited domain, possibly only within the extended coastal region of Andhra and through Orissa. Yet, Somanatha also inherits a far deeper legacy than his more temporally proximate ´Saiva sources, such as the Somasambhupaddhati or S utasam . hita . Most notably, we find a number of citations in the Somanathabhasya from the ´Sivadharmasastra , perhaps the single most authoritative source for lay ´Saiva samaya conduct dating back to the sixth or early seventh century (see for example Bisschop ( 2018 ) on the dating of the ´Sivadharmasastra ). Indeed, many of those features of Virasaivism that scholars have viewed as “revolutionary” and “vernacular”, including caste blindness among initiates, emotional or affective bhakti , reciting the stories of ´Saiva saints, and the worship of the ja ˙ngama , or Virasaiva saint, as a moving li ˙nga , were not at all new to the twelfth or thirteenth centuries, but can be directly traced back to the ´Sivadharmasastra itself 42 Other features of the ´Sivadharma , although less well known within the academic study of bhakti traditions, were equally foundational to the Viramahesvaras, including the belief that ´Saiva saints were not at all natural or material ( prakrta ) human beings but were rather incarnations of ´Siva’s gana s on earth 43 The original ´Sivadharma was couched in the form of a conversation between the sage Sanatkumara and Nandikesvara, the latter of whom, equated with the bull gana Vrsabha, was later understood to be incarnated as Basava himself. We also find, throughout the ´Sivadharma , frequent usage of the term ´sivayogin (Kan ´sivayogi ) as a religious identity marker, which as Gil Ben-Herut has shown was employed abundantly within early Virasaiva literature in Kannada Succinctly, the ´Sivadharma was no minor influence on the Viramahesvaras. By now, that ´Sivadharmasastra citations appear within the Viramahesvara corpus is somewhat of an established fact rather than a new finding; I have already discussed this myself, for example, in Fisher ( 2019 ). Concerning the history of the ´Sivadharma , research has been well underway for some years aimed at producing a critical edition of the text itself and tracing the outsized influence of the scripture on the history of popular ´Saivism. One particularly noteworthy example, in the present context, is the ongoing work of Florinda De Simini on the transmission of the ´Sivadharma and ´Sivadharmottara within vernacular currents of south Indian discourse. It may well be the case that the abundant ´Sivadharma citations preserved in the Somanathabhasya can be of use in reconstructing the earlier history of what has often proved to be an unruly and heterogenous textual transmission. As this work is being conducted elsewhere, my project is not primarily to address the textual history of the ´Sivadharma itself. My project is, however, both in the present article and within my 39 See, for instance, Dyczkowski ( 2009 ), p. 108 40 See, for instance, Jones ( 2018 ) on Gaurana’s Telugu Navanathacaritramu , and Mallinson ( 2019 ) on early vernacular texts that dialogue with Sanskrit sources on Hatha Yoga 41 While this matter will have to be discussed in future publications, a crucial example is the fact that Viramahesvaras drew on initiation rituals outside of the ´Saiva Siddhanta tradition, despite the fact that a Saiddhantika model was available to them in the Somasambhupaddhati 42 See below for some further discussion. These issues are also discussed in greater detail in my forthcoming book manuscript 43 The goal of becoming a gana in early ´Saivism, specifically in the Nepalese recension of the Skanda Purana , was discussed, for instance, by Yuko Yokochi ( Yokochi 2018 ) in her talk at the 17 th World Sanskrit Conference (7/11/18), “Mahaganapatir bhavet: Gana-hood as a religious goal in early Shaivism” Aside from the features mentioned in this paragraph, we also find some evidence that the practice of the ritual worship ( p uja ) of scriptural texts ( s¯asana ), explicitly discussed within the ´Sivadharma , may have continued under the Viramahesvaras (see De Simini ( 2016 ) for further discussion)

Religions 2021 , 12 , 222 13 of 24 larger book project, to clarify something that has to date escaped scholarship on the history of Virasaivism. Specifically, on historical and philological grounds, we can demonstrate conclusively that early Virasaivism—including the Somanathabhasya in particular—was constituted directly from the scriptural and cultural heritage of the ´Saiva Age, not least among which is the ´Sivadharma . To make this case requires that I document, as I have begun to do in this article and in Fisher ( 2019 ), the distinctive religious sensibilities that early Virasaivas directly inherited from the ´Sivadharma and other earlier ´Saiva sources In all likelihood, the Viramahesvara exegetes, and their predecessors, possessed far more than a casual acquaintance with the text of the ´Sivadharmasastra . Indeed, the Somanathabhasya incorporates textual extracts from the ´Sivadharma significantly in excess of the verses attributed by name to that text in our available manuscripts. For instance, in one passage variously described as “Viramahesvaramahatmya” or “Virasaivacara”, a significant portion of the anustubh passage consists of silent borrowings from the ´Sivadharma This was not, then, simply a matter of searching for an authoritative proof-text readily at hand. Moreover, the fact that the Viramahesvaras were thinking systematically with the ´Sivadharma is illustrated by the fact that we can observe what seems to be textual drift, possibly deliberate, in the verses of the ´Sivadharma themselves. While further manuscript work is needed to confirm this point, we meet with some intriguing ´Sivadharma citations in both the Somanathabhasya and the ´Saivaratnakara that speak either to deliberate redaction of the text or spurious attributions. These verses, moreover, do not appear in the most widely attested recensions of the ´Sivadharma 44 One should always bear the nirmalya out of devotion; one should not bear it out of greed It is called nirmalya because it is stainless ( nirmala ). One with an impure body should not bear it One should bear the nirmalya on the head, and one should also consume the naivedya Having drunk the prasada water, one obtains gana -hood 45 Both of these two verses concern the subject of nirmalya , the leftover offerings of food, flower garlands, etc. from the worship of ´Siva. By the thirteenth century, nirmalya had become a topic of contention within ´Saiva discourse across lineages, with the ´Saiva Siddhanta even taking deliberate pains to declare ´Siva’s nirmalya as impure, requiring the ritual intervention of shrines to Candesvara to purify its contamination 46 Nevertheless, following in the spirit of the earlier precedent set by the Pasupatas, the Viramahesvaras took a strong stance on the matter by not only declaring nirmalya as inherently pure, but requiring that initiates offer all food to their personal sivali ˙nga s before consumption such that it would become nirmalya . In contrast, the text we now associate with the most common recension of the ´Sivadharma does not provide any scriptural support for this practice. It is perhaps no surprise, then, that the redactors of the Viramahesvara canon would wish the ´Sivadharma to speak more forcefully in support of their position on the matter—and this is precisely what we find in the texts. In a similar vein, it is worth noting one additional verse attributed to the ´Sivadharma by both the Somanathabhasya and the ´Saivaratnakara , but this time with one crucial variant. The Somanathabhasya reads: “One must not go to a place in which ´Siva is not, where there are none of ´Siva’s people (nasti mahesvaro janah.)” 47 The 44 Further manuscript work on the ´Saivaratnakara will be necessary here, as well as on the ´Sivadharma itself. While I do not have access to all of the variants compiled by The ´Sivadharma Project, these verses do not appear in the published recension, Pasupatimatam of Naranarinatha, or in IFP transcript no. 72, copied from Adyar ms. no. 75425. I have not located these first two verses cited in any texts besides the Somanathabhasya and the ´Saivaratnakara 45 The Somanathabhasya preserves these two verses, not contiguously, which I have translated above: nirmalyam . dharayen nityam . bhaktya lobhan na dharayet | nirmalatvac ca nirmalyam . maladehi na dharayet || nirmalyam . dharayen m urdhni naivedyam . capi bhaksayet | tatprasadodakam . pitva ganapatyam avapnuyat || The ´Saivaratnakara also preserves both of these verses, the first as vs. 16.91 with the following variations: nirmalatvac ca nirmalyam . maladehi na dharayet | dharayec chivanirmalyam . bhaktya lobhan na dharayet || and the second as vs. 16.124, with the following variations: nirmalatvac ca nirmalyam . maladehi na dharayet| dharayec chivanirmalyam . bhaktya lobhan na dharayet || 46 For further detail, see for example Goodall ( 2009 ). 47 The Somanathabhasya reads: yasmin ksetre sivo nasti nasti mahesvaro janah. | tac ca sthanam. na gamtavyam..

Religions 2021 , 12 , 222 14 of 24 ´Saivaratnakara, on the other hand, preserves this variant: “One must not go to a place in which ´Siva is not, where there are no Viramahesvaras” (viramahesvaro janah.) 48 The fact that the phrase “nasti mahesvarah.” appears to have been replaced in the ´Saivaratnakara by “viramahesvarah.”, a less desirable reading, suggests that the verse was modified either intentionally, or through textual drift within the community, to employ the community’s term of self-reference, Viramahesvara. We do not, to clarify, have any evidence that the term Viramahesvara was employed in the original ´Sivadharma 49 It is abundantly clear, then, that the Somanathabhasya and the Viramahesvara corpus were substantially indebted to the ´Sivadharma , and that they invoked—and possibly redacted—the ´Sivadharma to underpin the authority of their fledgling ´Saiva community What may be less well established, by this point, is the fact that Somanatha was no pioneer in his invocation of the ´Sivadharmasastra within the thirteenth-century Viramahesvara community. Rather, the ´Sivadharmasastra was already foundational to the incipient ethos of the Virasaivas, or Viramahesvaras, even before the community was known by either of those names. Rather, we can illustrate the continuous influence of the ´Sivadharmasastra on the emergent Virasaiva community by looking more closely at a predecessor to Palkurik˘e Somanatha’s works, namely, the Telugu ´Sivatattvasaramu of Mallikarjuna Panditaradhya As of yet remarkably understudied for its contributions to Virasaiva thought, the ´Sivatattvasaramu is, like Somanatha’s Telugu works, internally bilingual, even preserving direct citations from the ´Sivadharmasastra embedded in its Telugu verses. These citations, as well as paraphrased content, allow us to isolate certain elements of the ´Sivadharma ’s worldview that were already prominent in the proto-Viramahesvara community before the time of Palkurik˘e Somanatha The ´Sivatattvasaramu is a Telugu ´Saiva verse work of which only 489 verses are currently thought to survive. What do we know, first of all, about Panditaradhya, purported author of the ´Sivatattvasaramu ? Aside from being the subject about whom Palkurik˘e Somanatha wrote the Panditaradhyacaritramu , the name Panditaradhya appears rather prolifically in the inscriptional record from the twelfth century onward. All things considered, Panditaradhya can be presumed, to the best of our evidence, to have been a historical personage and perhaps a late contemporary of Basava. Remembered as a native of Draksharama near Guntur in East Godavari District, Panditaradhya appears based on inscriptions to have been active in the Srisailam region in the late twelfth century 50 We know little for sure about what Panditaradhya’s doctrinal affiliation may have been, although Somanatha describes him as having studied under a certain K otipalli Aradhyadeva. As for his authorship of the ´Sivatattvasaramu , although we have no other substantial works attributed to him to compare, the author of the ´Sivatattvasaramu names himself as “Mallikarjuna Pandita” within the text itself 51 As scholars of Telugu literature have noted for some time, we also find a few direct citations of the ´Sivatattvasaramu within the Panditaradhyacaritramu , making it plausible to believe that the person Somanatha revered in this text was indeed the author of the ´Sivatattvasaramu ( Lalitamba 1975 , p. 40, ftn. 25) A fair amount of ink has been spilled by scholars of Telugu literature questioning whether Panditaradhya was in fact a “Virasaiva”, as the ´Sivatattvasaramu nowhere mentions 48 The ´Saivaratnakara (17.40) reads: yatra ksetre sivo nasti viramahesvaro janah. || tatra sthanam. na kartavyam. 49 The following verse, however, does appear in the ´Sivadharma : sud uram api gantavyam . yatra mahesvaro janah. | prayatnenapi drastavyas tatra sannihito harah. || (IFP Transcript 72, vs. 11.28). This same verse also appears later in the ´Saivaratnakara , without a clear attribution of source (vs. 21.31) 50 For instance, an inscription on a stone slab found in Sangamesvaram, ten miles from Alampur, records a gift of land to Mallikarjuna Pandita by Karnata Gokarnadeva, dated to 1187–1188 CE Hyderabad Archaeological Series (HAS) vol. 19, p. 71 (Mn. 34). Another intriguing series of inscriptions speaks in the voice of a certain Vibh uti Gauraya, self-described as servant in the household of Panditaradhya of Srisailam: srigiri- sr.˙ngavasi-sripanditaradhya-grhasthadaso . SII XX No. 357, written in Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, and Nagari scripts; HAS vol. 19, p. 92 (Mn. 44); cited as ARE (Annual Report on Indian Epigraphy) 25 of 1993–1994. ARE 4 and 6 of 1993–1994; written in Telugu and Sanskrit (Nagari), with characters dated to the thirteenth century. See also HAS vol. 3, p. 12. We also find mention of a land grant to two of Panditaradhya’s sons by the Kakatiya king Ganapati (r. 1199–1262); HAS vol. 13, pt. II, p. 4 (No. 1) 51 For other short works attributed to Panditaradhya, see Venkata Ravu, ed., ´Sivatattvasaramu , p. 33. The author of the ´Sivatattvasaramu names himself in vs. 387: ˘om . demi mallikarjuna, pam . ditu ˙ m dana numdukamt.˘e ˙m pramathulalo ne, nnamd.˘ok˘o niyajñonnati, numda ˙mga ˙m gamtu nanikorucumdudu rudra.

Religions 2021 , 12 , 222 15 of 24 the names Virasaiva, Viramahesvara, or Li ˙ngayat. Unfortunately, most of these debates have fixated on the question of whether or not the ´Sivatattvasaramu prescribes the bearing of the istali˙nga , as the term itself, and the related pranali˙nga , are also nowhere mentioned 52 Although these two later concerns did become integral to Palkurik˘e Somanatha’s theology, the fixation on these two points within Telugu language scholarship has obscured the substantial doctrinal homologies between the ´Sivatattvasaramu and Palkurik˘e Somanatha’s works. The ´Sivatattvasaramu contains, for instance, a lengthy section in praise of ´Siva’s Pramathaganas, associating them as later Viramahesvara authors do with the narrative of the destruction of Daksa’s sacrifice 53 Bhakti as a religious value is celebrated at great length; indeed, we even find references to a number of the ´Saiva saints whose stories Somanatha would later narrate in the Basavapuranamu and Panditaradhyacaritramu . The ´Sivatattvasaramu is equally insistent that caste distinctions must be totally prohibited among ´Saiva initiates. Moreover, we even find noticeably proto-Virasaiva language, such as an invocation of the term ja ˙ngama . In short, the substantial points of overlap all have roots in the popular lay theology of the ´Sivadharma In the surviving portion of the ´Sivatattvasaramu , there are seven verses with direct— although deliberately fragmentary—quotations from the ´Sivadharmasastra , making it the most frequently cited Sanskrit work within the Telugu text. I have reproduced below in Appendix B all seven of these citations. Indeed, in some cases, knowledge of the original Sanskrit from the ´Sivadharma allows us to emend textual corruptions in the Telugu that the editors appear not to have noted. One ´Sivadharma verse, for instance, that appears to loom particularly large in Mallikarjuna Panditaradhya’s imagination is the famous comparison between a dog cooker ( svapacah ) and a caturvedi brahmin, which asserts that commensality must be respected between ´Saiva devotees, regardless of their caste origin: “Neither a Caturvedi nor a dog cooker who is my devotee is more dear to me. He may be given to, and taken from, and is to be worshipped as I am myself” 54 This ´Sivadharma verse apparently warrants enough attention that Panditaradhya weaves portions of this Sanskrit citation through a series of three verses in Telugu. In the process, Panditaradhya reveals that he is well aware of the lengthy history of anti-caste rhetoric within the ´Saiva corpus; the necessity of erasing caste distinction among ´Saiva initiates, for him, is clearly no “revolution”, but rather an established point of doctrine To the best of our knowledge, then, it appears that ´Sivadharma vs. 1.36 conveys a fairly unambiguous literal meaning that was greeted favorably, and not undermined, by its interpretive communities. In other cases, what certain terms may have meant to an ideal reader of the ´Sivadharma in the sixth century is far less clear, and we would be wise to pause before reading back their Virasaiva meaning, iconic as it may be today, into the original scripture itself. For instance, Panditaradhya dwells over an extended series of Telugu verses on the concept of the ja ˙ngama , or “moving” sivali ˙nga , which by the time of the nascent Virasaiva traditions unambiguously refers to a human devotee of ´Siva, or ´Saiva saint One such Telugu verse in this passage, however, cites directly from the ´Sivadharma , while simultaneously paraphrasing the textual context of the citation. As Panditaradhya writes: The sentence “ li ˙nga s are said to be twofold” States that if one does not worship the ja ˙ngama li ˙nga As prescribed, having undertaken ritual, P uja s and good deeds become fruitless 55 The ´Sivadharma verse cited reads as follows: 52 For a review of the Telugu literature discussing Panditaradhya’s religious identity, see Lalitamba ( 1975 ), Chp. 4 53 The discussion of the Pramathaganas and the destruction of Daksa’s sacrifice by Virabhadra spans the verses of the ´Sivatattvasaramu between vs. 300 and 388 54 IFP Transcript 72, vs. 1.36: na me priyas caturvedi madbhaktah. svapaco ‘pi va | tasmai deyam. tato grahyam. sa samp ujyo yatha hy aham || 55 ´Sivatattvasaramu vs. 156: kriyag ˘ona jam . gamalim . gamu | niyatim . b ujim . pa ˙ mdeni nisphalamulu sa | tkriyalunu ˙m b ujalu “limga | dvayam samakhyatam” anina vakyamu mr oyun. I have emended “samakhyatam” in the Telugu to “samakhyatam” as is expected by Sanskrit grammar and metrics.

Religions 2021 , 12 , 222 16 of 24 Li ˙nga s are said to be twofold ( li ˙ngadvayam . samakhyatam ): the moving and non-moving The moving is known as “conviction” ( pratiti ). The non-moving is in the case of [ li ˙nga s] made of earth and so forth 56 In this Telugu verse, Panditaradhya’s point seems to revolve not much around the verse that is actually cited as much as around another slightly subsequent ´Sivadharma verse, which states that the fixed ( sth¯avara ) li ˙nga is useless without the moving ( ja ˙ngama ) li ˙nga : “Through disrespect of the ja ˙ngama , the sthavara becomes fruitless. Therefore, the wise one should never disrespect the pair of li ˙nga s” 57 We may assume, then, that Panditaradhya intends to invoke for his readers not simply the verse cited, but the wider discursive context of the twofold typology of li ˙nga s as discussed in the ´Sivadharma . As with all of his partial citations, the meaning of the ´Sivadharma verses cannot be coherently read without background knowledge simply from the elliptical Sanskrit provided. In this respect, Panditaradhya’s multilingual idiom appears to have been a foundational influence on Somanatha’s Telugu works, which also weave partial Sanskrit quotations directly into the Telugu grammar of his dvipada s. Thus, succinctly, the ´Sivatattvasaramu reveals a discursive world in which the ´Sivadharma was quite well known to his intended audience. He intends, evidently, not to teach something his audience has never encountered before, but to evoke a scriptural canon they can instantly recall even from the mention of a few key words. If the ´Sivadharma was, then, not new for Palkurik˘e Somanatha’s audience, it was likely not a novel source of inspiration in Panditaradhya’s generation either Now, the fact that the term ja ˙ngama predates the advent of Virasaivism proper is, in and of itself, not a new finding. In fact, David Lorenzen has already discussed this in his landmark study of the Kalamukhas, noting where the term ja ˙ngama appears in our inscriptional record as associated with Kalamukha institutions. The ´Sivadharma verses that mention this term, however, are ambiguous: is a “moving” li ˙nga a human saint, or a portable miniature sivali ˙nga ? Within the Viramahesvara context, for instance, the related word, carali ˙nga (“moving li ˙nga ”) retained the separate meaning of a portable sivali ˙nga , since we are provided with detailed measurements of its allowable dimensions ( Fisher 2019 , pp. 32–33.). As of yet, we know relatively little about which interpretation of the term ja ˙ngama or ja ˙ngamali ˙nga would have been most current in distinct pre-Virasaiva historical and discursive contexts. Indeed, the original ´Sivadharma verse itself does not precisely inspire confidence that ja ˙ngama was originally, in all cases, intended to mean a moving saint, as “ pratiti ”, the term used in the definition of the “moving li ˙nga ” ( caram . pratitivikhyatam ), does not conventionally have that meaning. Nevertheless, in the spirit of Lorenzen’s inscriptional evidence, the testimony of the ´Sivadharmavivarana , a rare commentarial voice from the tradition, also suggests that the concept of the ja ˙ngama was a decidedly pre-Virasaiva development: “Intending to articulate that the Mahesvaras also are to be respected like ´Siva himself, [the text] points out that they, also, are considered li ˙nga s” 58 But what, then, does the term ja ˙ngama mean for Panditaradhya? While he does not definitively state his position in the ´Sivatattvasaramu , the nearby context of the Telugu verse cited above suggests that the term ja ˙ngama did refer to a ´Saiva devotee, as the verse appears immediately after a discussion of the p uja of the ´Sivabhaktas themselves: Without having worshipped the ´Sivabhaktas, Having performed many crores of p uja s to ´Siva Is useless. To worship the ´Sivabhaktas 56 IFP Transcript 72, vs. 3.56–57: li ˙ngadvayam . samakhyatam . caram . cacaram eva ca || caram . pratitivikhyatam acaram . parthivadisu| 57 IFP Transcript 72, vs. 3.59: ja ˙ngamasyavamanena sthavaram . nisphalam . bhavet | tasmal li ˙ngadvayam . prajño navamanyeta panditah. || Naraharinatha, Pasupatimatam vs. 3.58: ja ˙ngamasyapamanena sthavaro nisphalo bhavet | tasmal li ˙ngadvayam. prajño navamanyeta jatucit || 58 ´Sivadharmavivarana on vs. 3.56: sivavan mahesvaranam api sammanyatvam . vivaksam . s, tesam . li ˙ngatvam iti di´sati | On how one ought to interpret the potentially obscure term pratiti , the ´Sivadharmavivarana writes as a commentary on vs. 3.57: pratitivikhyatam . pratyaksasiddhidam . sivapratinam laukikavrstigocarataya vartamanatvat | For more on the ´Sivadharmavivarana , see for instance Schwartz ( 2021 ), chp. 3.

Religions 2021 , 12 , 222 17 of 24 Is to perform crores of p uja s to ´Siva, O Rudra 59 Thus, the ´Sivatattvasaramu provides us with evidence that the ja ˙ngama had already acquired its conventional meaning as a human saint, and moreover, the text understood this meaning to be associated with the interpretive traditions of the ´Sivadharma . A further intriguing example occurs in a citation preserved in Jyotirnatha’s ´Saivaratnakara , where we meet with a variant reading for this very same ´Sivadharma verse. As Jyotirnatha cites: “There are said to be two types of li ˙nga s: the moving and non-moving. The non-moving is made of earth and so forth. The moving is known as the guest ( atithi )”. Although we cannot as of yet be certain if the verse was already modified in Jyotirnatha’s text at the time of composition, this seemingly minor variant is doing significant interpretive work: while the original verse may also refer to a portable sivali ˙nga , the ´Saivaratnakara restricts possible interpretations with the word “guest” ( atithi ) to provide an impeccable scriptural precedent for the worship of the human ja ˙ngama 60 Whether further manuscript research locates this shift at the text’s inception or in later textual drift, this ´Sivadharma verse provides an intriguing snapshot of textual redaction in process. It does suggest, in either case, that early Virasaiva exegetes were uncomfortable with the ambiguity in the original ´Sivadharma , and saw that text as the ideal authenticator of Virasaivism’s new approaches to ´Saiva praxis According to our textual evidence, then, the ja ˙ngama as moving li ˙nga was one of many concepts the Viramahesvara tradition shares with the ´Saiva Age interpretive tradition of the ´Sivadharma . Should we conclude, then, that the ´Sivadharma was the sole proximate source for the entr é e of these doctrinal elements into Virasaivism? As it turns out, textual evidence from further south in the Tamil country complicates matters a bit further. An epigraph preserved from the reign of Kul ottu ˙nga C ol ¯ a explicitly mentions the patronage of a group known as Viramahesvaras 61 This reference, however, contains little contextual information as to what sort of religious practice these “Viramahesvas” may have advocated. We do, however, possess an external source for this evidence, brief as it is, from a ´Saiva doxography that seems likely to date back to the C ol ¯ a period in question. A circa seventeenth-century Tamil work, a commentary on theÑan ¯ ¯avaran.avil.akkam by V˘elliyampalavanar, preserves an extensive Sanskrit citation from a work entitled the Sarvasiddhantaviveka , 62 in which we meet with a description of a group of Mahavratins who espouse a form of practice reminiscent of early Virasaivism. According to the Sarvasiddhantaviveka , these Mahavratins appear to advocate the bearing of the personal li ˙nga ( li ˙ngadharana ) as a central religious practice, and insist that the li ˙nga must be borne on the body only above the navel 63 The Srisailam Viramahesvaras attribute just such a restriction to the Vatulatantra , a text that the Tamil commentator V˘elliyampalavanar describes as a “Mahavratatantra” 64 But moreover, and crucially for the present instance, the Sarvasiddhantaviveka also links the practice of li ˙ngadharana explicitly with devotion to ja ˙ngama s. As the verses in question pair the term 59 ´Sivatattvasaramu vs. 155: sivabhaktula ˙ m b ujim . paka | sivap ujalu g otividhula ˙ m jesina vrtha ya | sivabhaktula ˙m b ujimputa | sivap ujala ˙m g otividhula ˙m jeyuta rudra || 60 Jyotirnatha cites from the ´Sivadharma (19.4): li ˙ngadvayam . samakhyatam . caram . cacaram eva ca | caram . catithivikhyatam acaram . parthivadikam || IFP Transcript no. 72, vs. 3.56–57: li ˙ngadvayam . samakhyatam . caram . cacarameva ca | caram . pratitivikhyatam acaram . parthivatmakam || Naraharinatha, Pasupatimatam , ´Sivadharmasastra vs. 3.56: li ˙ngadvayam . samakhyatam . sacaracaram eva ca | caram . praneti vikhyatam acaram parthivadisu || Although I have no further information about the prevalence of this variant, the appearance of the term “ prana ” in Naraharinatha’s text is quite interesting, as Viramahesvaras commonly referred to the istali˙nga granted upon initiation with the term “ pranali˙nga .” 61 See ARE 111 of 1893, published in Epigraphia Indica vol. 6, p. 276 62 The text of the Sarvasiddhantaviveka , as preserved by V˘elliyampalavanar, is reconstructed in Nagaswamy ( 2006 ), Art and Religion of the Bhairavas Nagaswamy dates the Sarvasiddhantaviveka to the eleventh century, as the author of the text describes himself as a disciple of the author of the Ratnatrayapariksa . See Nagaswamy ( 2006 ) p. 42. TheÑanavaranavilakkam is a text of the Tamil ´Saiva Siddhanta lineage, authored by Ñan ¯ acampantam urtikal of the Tarumapuram ¯ Atin ¯ am. Other elements of V˘elliyampalavanar’s knowledge of Virasaivism prove quite informative as to what textual knowledge had been imported into Tamil discourse by the seventeenth century. For instance, he cites a Tamil work entitled the Navali ˙nkalilai , which, based on the summary of Nagaswamy (p. 30), is clearly highly indebted to the Anubhavas utra of Mayideva. Further research is needed on this matter 63 On the bearing of the li ˙nga above the waist, the Somanathabhasya preserves the following verse attributed to the Vatulatantra : nabher adho li ˙ngadhari papmana ‘pi sa ucyate | nabhy urdhvam . li ˙ngadhari ca saubhagyajñanavardhanah. || The ´Saivaratnakara (14.27) also preserves this verse, attributed to “another text” ( granthantare ). I have discussed similar textual passages from the Viramahesvara corpus in Fisher ( 2019 ) to underscore the centrality of li ˙ngadharana to Viramahesvara praxis 64 See Nagaswamy, Art and Religion of the Bhairavas , p. 29, as well as ftn. 66 p. 38.

Religions 2021 , 12 , 222 18 of 24 ja ˙ngama directly with the term guru , clearly a human figure, it appears that the “moving li ˙nga ” quite clearly depicted the human ´Saiva devotee for this audience: He always bears the li ˙nga on his own head, or his shoulders, Or on other places above the navel, such as the heart, etc., according to the sastra Liberation [derives] from bearing the li ˙nga ; how much more so from the worship of men? As with devotion to ´Siva, so with devotion to the guru and the ja ˙ngama s Even so, devotion to the ja ˙ngama is called the “particular” ( visesa ) Those who are intent on the daily rituals and so forth stated in the sastra known as the Great Vow ( mahavrata ) Set forth for liberation in a single lifetime. Thus, here [on earth], they are “those of the Great Vow” 65 In other words, given this contextualizing information, it would appear overly facile simply to conclude that the theology of the ja ˙ngama was inherited by early Virasaivas directly from the raw text of the ´Sivadharmasastra without any textual or institutional intermediaries. As we have seen, the early interpretive context for these ´Sivadharma verses does attest to the fact that the ja ˙ngama was previously understood in the Virasaiva sense as a human saint. Moreover, while at this time the evidence available to us is fragmentary, the Virasaiva understanding of the term ja ˙ngama can also be traced through at least one intermediary discursive context in circa twelfth-century Tamil region, in which other practices favored by the Srisailam Viramahesvaras, such as li ˙ngadharana , seem to already be associated with each other. Yet the term li ˙ngadharana , central as it had become even to early Virasaivism, is not attested in the ´Sivadharma itself as a component of lay ´Saiva practice, nor are the names later attributed to the miniature li ˙nga borne on the body The istali˙nga , or personal aniconic image of ´Siva, is today quite renowned as a definitive marker of Virasaiva religiosity: initiates are generally obligated to wear around their necks a miniature sivali ˙nga imparted to them upon initiation, and for which they traditionally perform daily p uja , enshrined in the base that is the palm of the hand ( karabjapitha ). The Srisailam Viramahesvaras frequently invoke the concept of the istali˙nga , most frequently referred to as the pranali˙nga or svestali˙nga . While the Viramahesvara terms for such a personal li ˙nga do not appear in the ´Sivadharma nor its successors, they do appear in other sources that were directly known to the Somanathabhasya , including the Somasambhupaddhati Likewise, preserved within Viramahesvara texts, these terms appear in non-Saiddhantika ritual procedures, such as initiation ( diksa ), which may originally derive from a Kalamukha, or perhaps a similar Mahavratin lineage of transmission. This discrepancy underscores the fact that other foundational Virasaiva ritual elements cannot be traced to the ´Sivadharma , and must be excavated elsewhere within the sources cited by Somanatha and his successors These and other related issues will be discussed at greater length in other contexts, but suffice it to say for the present moment, an excavation of the ´Saiva Age precurrents of Virasaivism cannot be limited to the ´Sivadharma . While I hope to expand upon these findings in future publications, the following points should, I hope, be clear from the present article: (1) early Viramahesvara texts such as the Somanathabhasya drew substantially upon the textual resources of the ´Saiva Age and their religious systems of value, including, but not limited to, the ´Sivadharmasastra , and (2) the recovery of the history of this inheritance is best approached by bringing both Sanskrit and vernacular textual evidence into dialogue 65 As cited from the Sarvasiddhantaviveka , reconstructed in Nagaswamy, Art and Religion of the Bhairavas , p. s-12, vs. 116–119: li ˙ngadhari sada svasya mastake kandhare ‘thava || nabher urdhvam . yathasastram . sthanesu hrdayadisu | li ˙ngasya dharanan muktih. kim . punah. pujaya nrnam || yatha sive tatha bhaktir gurau vai ja ˙ngamesu ca | tathapi ja ˙ngame bhaktir visesa iti kathyate || mahavratakhyasastroktanityakarmaditatparah. | ekena janmana muktim . prayantiha mahavratah. | By the word “particular” ( visesah ), the Sarvasiddhantaviveka would appear to suggest that the worship of the ja ˙ngama is a higher or more exclusive form of practice reserved for a particular tier of initiates.

Religions 2021 , 12 , 222 19 of 24 In the thirteenth century, after all, ´Saivism was not exclusively entextualized in Sanskrit, and bhakti was not exclusively expressed in the vernacular Funding: This research was funded in part by a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Institutional Review Board Statement: Not applicable Informed Consent Statement: Not applicable Acknowledgments: A version of this paper was originally presented at the 2019 Society for Tantric Studies Conference in Flagstaff, AZ. I am grateful to the organizers for the invitation to contribute to this volume, and to the conference participants and anonymous peer reviewers who provided valuable feedback on this work. I offer thanks in particular to Shubha Shanthamurthy and Jamal Jones for our dialogues over the past years on the ´Sivatattvasaramu and Panditaradhyacaritramu Conflicts of Interest: The author declares no conflict of interest Appendix A Example of Parallels in the Somanathabhasya and Panditaradhyacaritramu Matching citations will be indicated in bold below. Citations of a series of visualization verses. Note that these extracts appear in distinct sections in the two texts: specifically, in the “Vibh utimahatmya” of the Somanathabhasya , and in the “Rudraksamahima” (Skt. Rudraksamahima) section of the Panditaradhyacaritramu Somanathabhasya: 66 rudraksavalayah. subhro jataj utavirajitah. || bhasmavaliptasarva ˙ngah. kaman.dalukaranvitah. | krsnajinopavita ˙ngah. adosi punyakirtanah. || asevate mahadevah. yoginam. hrdayalayam || iti tatraiva pranavavyavarnanam || rudraksabh usana sarva jatamandaladharini | aksamalarpitakara kamandalukaranvita || tripundravaliyukta ˙ngi asadhena virajita | rgyajuhsamar upena sevate sma mahesvaram. || tathaiva gayatrivyavarnanam. tatraiva || subhratripundrani subhani tiryag raksabhir uddh ulita sarvagatrah. | rudraksamala vimalas ca bibhran tadrgvidhaih. sisyaganair munindrah. || iti tatraiva vedavyasamunivyavarnanam || sam . st uyamano dipta ˙ngair devair muniganais tatha | dhrta tripundrako divyai rudraksais ca vibh usitah. || susubhe satatam . visnur bhasmadigdha tan uruhah. | tripundra ˙nkitasarva ˙ngo jatamandalamanditah. || iti tatraiva visnuvyavarnanam || ityadisrutismrtitihasagamapuranavacanodiritasitabhasitatripundrahinas ca ye santi te na darsaniya na sam . bhasyah. || iti sriviramahesvaracarasaroddhare basavarajiye somanathabhasye vibh utimahatmyam . nama dvitiyaprakaranam . samp urnam || 66 This occurs around pp. 12–13 of the printed book.

Religions 2021 , 12 , 222 20 of 24 Panditaradhyacaritramu: 67 . . . yitlu mar ¯ iyu ˙ m buranagama sruti smrtulunar ¯ a leka c˘eppu rudraksa kalpamulan adigaka bh uti rudraksamul dalci vadalaka sivu ˙ m g ˘olpuvarala vinu ˙ mdu acalitapriti brahmam . dapurana vacanambu “ rudraksavalaya ” yanam . ga ˙ m brati “ jataj utavirajita ” yana, virati ˙ m “dripum . drena virajita” yana, malina medi “ bhasmavaliptasarvam . ga ” yana ˙ mgan ˘oppu ˙ m branavavyavarnanambu v ˘ogadamga “ rudraksabh usana ” yana ˙ mga ˙ m daga “ jatamamdaladharini ” yana ˙ mga ˙ m dar ¯ in “ aksamalarpitakara ” yana ˙nga ner ¯ i “ gamandalu karanvita ” yana ˙nga nur ¯ u ˙ m “ dripum . dravaliyuktam . gi ” yana ˙ mga gur ¯ i “ rgyajussamaghosena ” yana ˙ mga nila “ sevate sma mahesvaram ” ana ˙ mga nalaru ˙ m da gayatrivyavarnanambu rati ˙ m “dripum . drena virajita” yana ˙ mga vratayukti “rudraksavalaya” yanamga s ˘ogasi “subhr o jataj uta” yanamga 68 vagavam . ga nadi gratuvyavarnanam . bu sari ˙ m “dripum . dr odbhasi sarvam . ga” yana na mari yam . da “rudraksamam . danair” ana ˙ mga vadi vayaviyasavarnisamhitala sadisana nidiyu ˙m da samidabhidhana devatavyavarnanavrtti yana ˙mga ˙m da v˘em . diyu ˙ m buranatatulalo ˙m d˘elpu sari ˙ m “dripundramkitasarvamgi” yana na mari yam . da “rudraksamam . danair” ana ˙ mga nadigaka m ˘odala “suddhatma” yanam . ga nad˘e vasaddevatavyavarnanambu diviri “ tripum . drak o divyair ” anam . ga naviralapriti “ rudraksais ca ” ana ˙ mga dudi “ susubhe satat o visnur ” ana ˙ mga nadiyu “ bhasmasnigdham ” ana ˙ mga nav visnu vyavarnanamu yajurvyavarnanambu saivadulam . ditlu sam . gamai mariyu ˙m p olam . ga “ subhratripum . drani ” yana ˙ mga lila “ raksabhir uddh ulita ” yana ˙ mga 67 Panditaradhyacaritramu , pp. 11–12 68 This citation appears identical to the one above, but I have only noted the parallel once.

Religions 2021 , 12 , 222 21 of 24 manasidi “ rudraksamala ” yanu vacanamu “rudram . s ca pañcabrahma” yana ˙ m dagili “yatharva´sirassikhe” yanunivi m ˘odala ˙ m duda ˙ m b˘ena ˙ mga raudramula mam . tramula velayu ˙ m “bam . caksarim vidyam” anam . ga n ˘olaya sadaksariyunu japimcucunu nita ˙m “b ujayet paramesvaram” ana ˙mga sphutabhakti nisvarap ujabhiniratu ˙m dana ˙mga na vyasuni vyavarnanambu munu gasikakham . d.amuna ˙ m j˘eppu mar ¯ iyu bhuvin ˘oppa “rudraksabh usana” yana ˙mga navu ˙ m “dripum . dr¯alam . krtam . gas ca” yana ˙ mga ˙ m b ˘orin “aksamalavibh usita” yana ˙mga naruduga svayambhuvadi manuvula vyavarnanamu s˘eppu ˙m gavuna nittu lavidhi vissnu . . Appendix B Citations from the ´Sivadharmasastra in the ´Sivatattvasaramu of Mallikarjuna Panditaradhya: Vs. 114, parallel to ´Sivadharma 1.36 bhaktiya mukti t˘eruvu vi dhyuktamuga “na me ya priya caturveda” “ma dbhaktas ca ´suci” yanu na s ukti pradhanammuga ˙ m bas uttamula kaja 69 Vs. 115, parallel to ´Sivadharma 1.36 k ˘onunadi bhaktuni cetana dhana matanika yiccunadiyu “tasmai deyam . ” baniyunu “tasmad grahyam . ” baniyunu gala daniri vedabhaktividhijñul’ vs. 116, parallel to ´Sivadharma 1.36 katha letiki “sa ca p ujyo yatha hyaham” manina vidhiyatharthamuga manmathamardana, ni bhaktula ˙ m brathitam . buga niva ka ˙ mga bhavim . tu siva Vs. 156, parallel to ´Sivadharma 3.56 kriyag ˘ona jam . gamalim . gamu niyatim . b ujim . pa ˙ mdeni nisphalamulu sa- 69 As noted above, the Sanskrit citation preserved in the printed editions has been corrupted from the following: na me priyas caturvedi madbhaktah svapaco ‘pi va.

Religions 2021 , 12 , 222 22 of 24 tkriyalunu ˙ m b ujalu “lim . gadvayam . samakhyatam” anina vakyamu mr oyun Vs. 181, parallel to ´Sivadharma 1.28 pran.utimpa “na me bhaktah. pranasyamti” yana ˙mga ˙m daginapalukunaku ˙m dagan gananatha bhaktacimta mani raksimpav˘e yaparamahimadhara 70 Vs. 203, parallel to ´Sivadharma 11.28 anaghula ˙ m gevalabhaktula ˙ m nanus.aktim. gani “sud uram api gantavyam” mana darsim . cina ˙ m jalad˘e g ˘onak ˘oni sivu ˙ m j uda ver ¯ a k ora ˙ mga nela Vs. 210, parallel to ´Sivadharma 3.55 sphutasivatamtriku ˙m dapagata kutilatmaku ˙mdu dhariyimcu gotramun ˘ellam. batugati “rajjuh. k upad ghat.am. yatha” yanina s ukti garana magutan References Primary Sources Barnett, Lionel D Inscriptions at Palampet and Uparpalli. Hyderabad Archaeological Series , vol. 3. Hyderabad: Nizam’s Government, 1919 Haradatta, Caturvedatatparyasa ˙ngraha Ed. P. A. Ramasamy Sastri, with the Caturvedatatparyacandrika of ´Sivali ˙ngabh upala. Kumbakonam: Sri Vidya Press, ND Institut français de Pondich é ry, Transcript no. 1059 Hultzsch, E., ed. 1899 Epigraphia Indica , vol. 6. New Delhi: Archaeological Survey of India, 1899 Jyotirnatha, ´Saivaratnakara Ed. Mallikarjuna Sastri. Solapur: Virasaivalingibrahmanagranthamala, 1910. Ed. C. N. Basavaraju. Mysore: University of Mysore Oriental Research Institute, 1992. Institut français de Pondich é ry, Transcript no. 0497 Institut français de Pondich é ry, Transcript no. 0923 Katti, Madhav N Annual Report on Indian Epigraphy for 1993–1994 . New Delhi: Archaeological Survey of India, 1999 Mallikarjuna Panditaradhya, ´Sivatattvasaramu Ed. Nidudavolu Venkataravu. Krsnapatika Karyalayamu, 1968. Chennai: Andhra Sahitya Parisattu, 1922 Nilakantha Naganatha, Viramahesvaracarasa ˙ngraha . Ed. Mallikarjuna Sastri. 3 vols. Solapur: Virasaivalingibrahmanagranthamala, 1906 Palkurik˘e Somanatha, Basavapuranamu . Ed. Guda Venkata Subrahamanyam. Hyderabad: Kalabhavanamu, 1969 Palkurik˘e Somanatha, Caturvedasaramu . Ed. Bandaru Tammayyagaru. Vijayawada: Calavadiracayya, 1962 Palkurik˘e Somanatha, Panditaradhyacaritra . Ed. Cilukuri Narayanaravu. Hyderabad: Telugu Visvavidyalaya, 1990 Palkurik˘e Somanatha, Somanathabhasya Ed. Mallampalli Bhairavamurtyaradhya ´Sri Somanathabhasya . Masulipatam: Sribhairavamudraksarasala, 1914 Adyar Library and Research Centre, Ms. No. DX 864. Baroda Oriental Research Institute, Ms. No. II 7116. Biblioth è que nationale de France, Sanscrit no. 1043 Government Oriental Manuscripts Library in Madras, Ms. No. D 5493. Institut français de Pondich é ry, Transcript no. T 0330 70 The edition of Venkataravu preserves a singular reading in the Sanskrit (na me bhaktah. pranasyati) while the 1922 Chennai edition preserves the plural (na me bhaktah. pranasyanti).

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