Anubhava Mantapa is a place where, or a level of consciousness in which, mystic experiences were shared in the Vira-Shaiva tradition. Anubhava Mantapa is said to be a historically important place where Basavanna and other saranas sat together and discussed the various socio-economic, cultural, literary, and spiritual aspects of life as well as mysticism. The magnetic personality of Basavanna attracted spiritual luminaries of Kashmir, Afghanistan, Saurashtra, Sollapura, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu and other parts of India.
The exact location of Anubhava Mantapa is not clearly known.
It cannot be determined with certainty whether Basavanna’s residence – mahamane
– was called Anubhava Mantapa or whether this was the newly designed accommodation
built for the same purpose.
Probably, Basavanna’s residence, which was called mahamane, could
have been the first place where saranas congregated for discussions. As far as
the discussions and interactions among the saranas are concerned, we have
numerous references in vacans and other literary works.
Allama Prabhu is said to have been the presiding deity of
that holy seat. The greatness of that seat was that there was no barrier of
caste, creed or gender. Aydakki Lakkamma, who was a housewife of Ayadakki
Marayya, enjoyed the same freedom of discussion as Siddaramayya enjoyed. Men
and women shared the same platform. The so-called prime minister of Bijjala
Chakravarti, Basavanna, sat amidst saranas as a common sarana. In Kalajnana
vacanas we find these phrases – vichara mantapa, visala mantapa, jnanaprakasha
mantapa, prasada mantapa and elladevara anubhava mantapa. In fact, prasada
mantapa (the place where food was served) later may have got converted into
vicara mantapa, level of thought (and further became jnana prakasha mantapa,
level of enlightening knowledge, and then elladevara anubhava mantapa, level of
realization. Since it was big enough to accommodate quite a number of saranas,
it was also called visala mantapa, all encompassing state.
Even though phrases like sulund or saranas nudigadana
suggest that the discussions were held amongst saranas during the time of
Jedara Dasimayya itself, it appears that it was only during the time of
Basavanna that Anubhava Mantapa took shape as an institution which allowed
democratic discussions aimed at creating a new society.