Siddharameshwar(Siddheshwar,Siddharama)

Siddharama was a great contributor to the Lingayata religion and he is considered as one of the five prophets of Lingayat religion. Siddarama finds a distinguished place, along with Basavanna, Chennabasavanna, Prabhudeva and others. In the Veerashaiva literature there is much material AbOUT Siddharama. Since much of it is made up of legends and myths, we have to sift it carefully so as to arrive at the historical truth. He was certainly a historical person, since references to him are found in inscriptions as well as in what remains of his works.He is known as Siddharama of Sonnalige, the present Solapur, a district headquarters in the present Maharashtra State. Here can be seen to this day the Lingas he installed, the temples and tanks he built and other relics of his activity.

At Sonnalige (today’s Solapur) there lived an old couple, Muddugauda and Suggave. One day Revanasiddheshvara, the great Guru of the day, arrived and, alighting from his palanquin, walked up to their home and prophesied that she would be the mother of a great yogi. True to the prophecy, the boy they had waited for so long was born, endowed with splendid features. But to the parents’ distress, the child neither cried nor drank his mother’s breast milk, and seemed unaware of things around him. Being an unusual child, his parents brought him up with particular care and affection. When the boy was about ten years old and still a source of anxiety to his parents, he was sent one day into the fields to graze cattle. Here the queer boy begins to worship a Shivalinga under a mango-tree and gives his meal away among his companions.

One day Mallikarjuna appeared before him in the guise of a Jangama. Siddharama enquired who he was. After being told that he was residing at Shrishailam and his name was Mallikarjuna, Siddharama was very pleased and offered him delicious food prepared out of fresh corn. Mallikarjuna then demanded buttermilk and gruel, and Siddharama ran home for them, and in the meanwhile Mallikarjuna disappears. The boy, returning, searches for him in vain. As he runs about crying ‘Mallayya’, ‘Mallayya’, he meets with a pilgrim-party on its way to Shrishailam. The pilgrims offer to show him Mallinatha if he would go with them. Once there, he was shown the temple where Mallikarjuna Linga was installed and informed that the Linga was Mallinatha Himself. Siddharama, however, refusing to believe that Mallinatha was in the Linga installed there, threw himself into the valley in despair; but the god, appearing to him in person, caught him up and sent him back home with the advice to take up some philantropic work, since the very purpose of a Shivayogi’s life is to uplift the people. On his return, Siddharama sets up sixty-four Lingas at Sonnalige and constructs temples, tanks, alms-sheds etc.

As he is engaged in the pursuit of his appointed work, Prabhu arrives in the course of his tour, to find Siddharama’s disciples digging tanks. Resolving to show Siddharama the true way to self-realisation.Prabhu has realised that Maya must still be lurking in Siddarama's consciousness. When he asks the disciples where the mason is to be found, they attack him with stones and staves; but they attack him in vain. Siddarama, learning of this, himself comes to the spot. He is swollen with pride, as the possessor of the third eye; besides, has he not established numerous Lingas? When he threatens to open his third eye, Prabhu, not the least ruffled, asks him if he could be a yogi in his violence. At these words, Siddharama opens his fiery eye; but the flame issuing from it is meekly absorbed in the soles of Prabhu’s feet. At this, Siddharama, realising his folly, instantly falls at Prabhu’s feet, and is by him forgiven and set on the right path.

From this time begins the second stage of Siddharama’s life. He has now realised that salvation cannot be attained through philantropic acts and worship of Lingas established in the temples.

Prabhu’s purpose is to wean Siddharama from this form of worship to Ishtalinga, and so to transform him from a yogi into a Shivayogi. Hence he proposed that Siddharama should accompany him to Kalyana, which was then the home of Basavanna and Ishtalinga worship.

But there was no entrance into Basavanna’s Anubhava Mantapa for one who had no Ishtalinga. Siddarama had accordingly to learn its secret. So he was invested with Ishtalinga, and it seems that the ceremony was performed by Chennabasavanna.

After his initiation, Siddarama made rapid progress along the path of Shivayoga, and in course of time succeeded Chennabasavanna on Shunya Simhasana, or the pontificial throne. He entered his ultimate trance at Sonnalige where he had retired. His influence on several contemporaneous as well as subsequent Sharanas is evident from many sources. His tradition has come down continuously from his time to ours throughout South India. Gifts and charities made in his name by kings and other rulers are recorded in inscriptions. He was an ardent believer in Action. Though he was at first inclined towards visible works such as construction of tanks and temples, installation of Lingas, establishment of alms-housed etc., as calculated to lead him to Heaven, he came later, under Prabhu’s influence, to believe that such philantropic works by themselves, any more than the possession of the third eye, the daily access to Kailasa and such other yogic accomplishments, would not lead to Mukti. As apparent from his vachanas as well as from his biography by Raghavanka, his mastery of yoga was extraordinary. His meeting with Prabhu proved to be a turning-point in his life, and his yoga was transformed into Shivayoga. Another important stage in his life is the initiation given him by Chennabasavanna. His sojourn at Kalyana gave a new orientation to his life, living as he now did among numerous Sharanas in Basavanna’s Anubhava Mantapa, and the feeling that he was God made way for a spirit of utter submission to God.

Out of sixty-eight thousand vachanas which Siddharameshvara is claimed to have composed, only a few hundred have survived, and many of them are noted for their literary excellence. From some of them it becomes clear that he was from the first in the Pranalingi-sthala. Many contemporary Sharanas, too, have testified to it; and it may be presumed that he had simultaneously mastered the other sthalas and their subdivisions.

Many Sharanas, both men and women, have paid tributes to Siddharameshvara. The following may be quoted among others:

I gained through Siddarama one-pointed faith. – Prabhu

Siddharameshvara is The Shivayogi who can be Linga himself And himself be linga. – Chennabasavanna

Siddarama's trance has become mine as well. As I am his little child, He has in his pity bestowed on me The ‘Prana-prasada’. – Mahadeviakka

Siddarama had attained The sanctity of yoga. – Eleshvara Ketayya

Following Basavanna, the Jangamalinga, Siddarama became as Basavanna. – Neelambike

Siddarama is the spirit of my God. – Marula Shankaradeva

Through Siddarama's grace I gained the pure Shiva-principle. – Tontada Siddhalingeshvara

Siddarama's Vachanas

Allama's attention is on detachment from worldly life,
Chennabasava's mind is on knowledge and action,
Basavanna's concentration is on intense devotion,
Madivala's vigilance is on destroying his ego,
Sakalesh's focus is on equality,
Shivayogi Siddharama's focus is on Ishtalinga Pooja.

That blazing sun is enthroned
In the eight petalled Lotus Heart
The Moon is enthroned in the centre of that sun
Fire is seated in the centre of that moon
The glow is seated in the centre of that fire
Enlightenment dwells
In the centre of that glow
Enlightened soul resides in that enlightenment
Shiva the Supreme inhabits
The centre of that enlightened soul
Such a supreme Lord
Placed His hand on the head of my enlightened body
Forged it into a shape from the
Senses of the mind and feeling
And revealed it to my sight
And gave Linga to my palm
To the blessed feet of Channabasavanna
I bow again and again and thus
Will I live O Prabhu,
O Lord Kapilsiddha Mallikarjuna

The body exists by Your grace,
The mind lives by Your grace,
The wealth comes by Your grace,
When it is perceived that everything is by Your grace,
Everything in its entirety is given as an offering to You ...

A [...] is crowing day in and day out
The multitudes of mortals are not aware of it.
Once they are aware,
No birth or bondage for them.
If they stay unaware
No end of their births and deaths,
O Kapilsiddhamallikarjuna.

Devotee falls in love with a woman
Joining her in marriage
Devotee falls in love with earth
Buys it and builds a house
Devotee falls in love with wealth
It makes him tired and it provides
Kapilasidda Mallikarjuna.

By applying the ointment
Named Shiva's knowledge
Removed the cataract named ignorance
Gained knowledge of Shiva
Kapilasidda Mallinatha

Merely wearing the sacred ashes
does not make one a Sharana
If the actions of desire are burnt to ashes,
then it does make one a Sharana

References

http://www.lingayathism.net/vachanavani/index.php?album=Siddarameshwara