Basaveshwara

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi led a host of leaders in offering homage to the 12th-century social reformer Basaveshwara on his birth anniversary.

Key highlights:

• Basaveshwara, also known as Bhaktibhandari, Basavanna, or Basaveswara, was a 12th-century philosopher, Kannada poet, and a social reformer during the reign of the Kalachuri-dynasty king Bijjala I in Karnataka.

• He spread social awareness through his poetry, popularly known as Vachanaas. He rejected gender or social discrimination, superstitions and rituals.

• He introduced new public c institutions such as the ‘Anubhava Mantapa’(or, the “hall of spiritual experience”), which welcomed men and women from all socio-economic backgrounds to discuss spiritual and mundane questions of life, in open.

• He was founder of the Lingayats sect.