Vacana of Between
Eye of Horus, Tounge of Siva,
Feet of Asir(Isis), Hands of Vishnu
mind of Thoth, heart of Hanuman
(ode the the Virasaiva, Kannada and Sanskrit poets )

You spirit of between
you

the unmediated vision,'
the unconditioned act, the unpredictable experience





The Virasaiva saints -- unlike exponents of other kinds
of Hinduism, and like other bhakti movements in India --
do not believe that religion is something one is born into.
An orthodox Hindu believes a Hindu is born, not made. With
such a belief, there is no place for convention in Hinduism;
a man born to his caste or faith cannot choose and change,
nor can others change him. But if he believes in acquiring
merit only by living and believing certain things, then
there is room for choosing and changing his beliefs....

Why did the vacanakaras [Virasaiva poets] (and certain other
bhakti traditions in India and elsewhere) reject, at least
in their more intense moods, the 'great' [that is, the Pan-
Indian, Vedic] and the 'little' [the regional, folk religious]
traditions? I think it is because the 'great' and 'little'
traditions, as we have described them, together constitute
'establishment' in the several senses of the word. They *are*
the establishment, the stable, the secure, ... in the social
sense. In another sense, such traditions symbolize man's
attempt to establish or stabilize the universe for himself.
Such traditions wish to render the universe manipulable,
predictable, safe. Every prescribed ritual or magical act
has given results....

..The 'great' and the 'little' traditions organize and
catalogue the universe, and make available the price-list.

But the vacanakaras have a horror of such bargains, such
manipulations, the arrogance of such predictions. The Lord's
world is unpredictable, and all predictions are false,
ignorant, and worse.

Thus, classical belief systems, social customs and super-
stitions..., image worship..., the caste system..., the
Vedic ritual of *yajna*..., as well as local sacrifices
of lambs and goats... -- all of them are fiercely
questioned and ridiculed.

Vacanas [the poems themselves] often go further and reject
the idea of doing good so that one may go to heaven.
Righteousness, virtue, being correct, doing the right things,
carry no guarantee to god....

et we must not forget that this fierce rebellion
against petrification, was a rebellion only against
contemporary Hindu practice; the rebellion was a
call to return to experience. Like European
Protestants, the Virasaivas returned to what they
felt was the original inspiration of the ancient
traditions, no different from true and present
experience.

Defiance is not discontinuity. Alienation from the
immediate environment can mean continuity with an
older ideal. Protest can take place in the very
name of one's opponents' ideals.

There are many varieties of bhakti; here we refer
only to the kind exemplified by the vacanas. In
the Northern traditions, Kabir's poems would be a
parallel example. The 'great' and 'little'
traditions flow one into the other, as in an
osmosis. They together constitute the 'public
religion' of Hinduism, its 'establishment' or
'structure'.... Bhakti as anti-structure begins
by denying and defying such an establishment, but
in course of time, the heretics are canonized;
temples are erected to them, Sanskrit hagiographies
are composed about them. Not only local legend
and ritual, but an elaborate theology assimilating
various 'great tradition' elements may grow around
them. They become, in retrospect, founders of a
new caste, and are defied in turn by new egalitarian
movements.... Saivism in general, and Virasaivism
even more so, has been rightly described as 'a revolt
from within, while Buddhism and Jainism were revolts
from the outside'.... Some Virasaivas, however,
disclaim all connections with Hinduism.

_Speaking of Siva_, from the intro. by A.K.Ramanujan,
Penguin Books, 1985; pp. 27-36.