An old white painted temple in the heart of Bangalore and a reformer of Hinduism

WHILE WALKING ALONG Bangalore’s Avenue Road, which runs from City (KR) Market to Palace Road, I spotted a mandir (Hindu Temple) down a side street. It was painted white, and its facade was surmounted by three tall niches, each containing a sculpture.

So many layers of paint had been applied over the years that the details on the sculptures had disappeared from view. At the rear of the mandir, I saw a tower like structure – part of the mandir’s roof. This was a popular landing place for pigeons. Within the building there were crudely carved stone pillars supporting the ceiling. These looked very old. Two rows of pillars lined a central ‘aisle’ leading to a shrine at the far end of the temple.

Above the entrance, there was a sign written in the script of the Kannada language, which I am unable to read. I showed a photograph of this sign to a bearer (waiter) in the dining room of the Bangalore Club. He deciphered it for me. The mandir is ‘Sri Belli Basavanna Devasthana”. This means ‘The Sri Basavanna Silver Temple’. Located in Basavannagudi Street in the Chickpet district, this is one of the oldest mandirs in Bangalore.

Born in Karnataka, Basavanna lived from 1131-1196 AD. A Shaivite (follower of Shiva) and social reformer, he was a founder of Lingayatism. His reforms included rejection of both social and gender discrimination. According to Wikipedia:
“Basava championed devotional worship that rejected temple worship and rituals led by Brahmins and replaced it with personalized direct worship of Shiva through practices such as individually worn icons and symbols like a small linga (sic). This approach brought Shiva’s presence to everyone and at all times, without gender, class or caste discrimination.”
Thus, we can see that Basava(nna) was a forward thinking person. He made religious worship personal rather than mediated by caste-conscious Brahmins.

Had my eye not been attracted by the flocks of pigeons flying around the small white mandir, it might have been many years before I became aware of Basavanna and his important ‘democratisation‘ of Hinduism.