Basavanna

Twelfth-century minister of the Kalachuri king Bijjala II and the guiding figure of the Lingayats: founder of the Anubhava Mantapa open to all, poet of the vachanas that call the body itself the temple, and rejecter of caste, Vedic ritual and priesthood in favour of the linga worn on the body. Ramanujan, Michael and Schouten hold he revived and energised an older current rather than inventing it.