The Vachanakaras in their Lingayat teaching, like the Vedantins, advocate the doctrine that Linga is sat, chit, ananda, nitya, and paripoorna.
Chit – Many Vachanakaras describe Linga or Shiva in mystical
expressions like arivu or jnana, knowledge, chit, consciousness, prakashaa,
effulgence, and chit-prakasha, consciousness-effulgence. It is infinite, indivisible
undifferentiated consciousness and is gender-free. It is present in us in the
form of the jivatman, individual self, bound by body, mind, and senses. Linga
is omnipresent and it is wrong to think that it is present only in living
beings and not in inanimate objects.
Sat – All things in the world are subject to constant change.
But the Consciousness in them does not change. It is sat, real. All things come
and go at different points of time, but the universal Consciousness neither
comes nor goes, it always is. It is the unchanging substratum of all change.
Just as the sea remains as it is, in spite of taking many forms — waves,
bubbles, or foam — so also Linga remains unchanged in the midst of innumerable changes
in the world, which is its transformation. In fact, if there were no unchanging
reality, sat, no changing world could exist.
Ananda – In their samadhi, yogis experience the unchanging
Consciousness in contrast to the constantly changing mental states experienced
in the usual waking life. That is the moment when they experience bliss, ananda.
Just as the Consciousness experienced in the state of samadhi is called sat and
chit, so also it is called ananda. Ananda is the original nature of
Consciousness and is not derived from any external source. If Consciousness experienced
in the mystic state is Linga, then Linga must be sat, chit, and ananda.
Nitya – Linga is also nitya, eternal — beginningless and
endless. One may ask the meaningful question, ‘What was the time of
Shankaracharya?’ However, the question ‘Since when has Linga been in
existence?’ is absurd, for Shiva is eternal. This implies that persons subject
to birth and death should not be called God.
Basavanna argues that the god Indra is born of Amritavati
and Somashambhu, Brahma is born of Jyeshta Devi and Satyarshi, and Vishnu is
born of Vasudeva and Devaki. ‘Does God Kudalasangamadeva who is beyond
creation, maintenance, and destruction have parents?’ (Samagra-vachana-samputa,
ed. M M Kalburgi et al. (Bengaluru: Kannada Book Authority, 2001), vol. 1,
verse 545.)
Paripoorna · The word Paripoorna as applied to Shiva means
‘all-pervasive’. While many theists refuse to think that God, being holy and
perfect, exists in unholy places, the Vachanakaras think that Linga exists
everywhere. Like the Upanishadic thinkers, they say that God is smaller than the
smallest and bigger than the biggest. Statements like ‘Whichever way I look,
you alone are, O Bhagavan’, ‘You are the forest, and trees in it, and the
animals that move about in it’ also speak of the Lingayat concept of God as
omnipresent.
Though the world is entirely occupied by Linga, it does not exhaust him. Since it is said to be included in God, he must be conceived as both immanent and transcendent. In other words, the Lingayat position is one of panentheism and not pantheism.
Source – excerpts from article titled ‘Lingayat Philosophy and Vedanta’ by Prof. N G Mahadevappa in the 2010 issue of Prabuddha Bharata Magazine.