Attitudes toward the Subaltern in the Early Kannada Śiva Bhakti Tradition

This presentation seeks to examine the social attitudes of the Śiva Bhakti tradition, known today as Vīraśaivism and Liṅgāyatism, in the Kannada-speaking region. The tradition’s positions toward marginalized groups in society, here referred to using the term “subaltern,” remain highly contested and undetermined, spanning from accusations of elitism that mirrors conservative Brahminism to social activism that rejects the legitimacy of the same assumed elitism (among the communities and in relation to the general society). The roots of this conundrum can be found in the Ragaḷe stories written by Harihara only a few decades after their deaths, in the late twelfth or early thirteenth centuries. Referring to stories from a forthcoming publication of translations from corpus, the presenter will portray a complicated social picture in which one can find both stark rejections of conservative attitudes and excluding practices toward subaltern groups as well as support for religious elitism and exclusion.