Peetha to go back to using Kudalasangama Deva as Basaveshwara’s nom de plume

Lingayat institution decides to discontinue using Linga Deva in all its future publications

Mathe Gangadevi, head of the Basava Dharma Peetha in Kudalasangama, has announced that the institution will revert to the use of Kudalasangama Deva as the signature of Sri Basaveshwara’s Vachanas in all its future publications.

She made the announcement in Bagalkot on Tuesday. Long ago, the late Sri Mathe Mahadevi, former head of the peetha, used Linga Deva as the signature of Sri Basaveshwara in the book Vachana Deepti.

The State Government had stopped its publication and seized the copies that were already printed. Since then, the peetha stopped the re-printing and publication of that book. In the light of these developments, “we have decided to use Kudalasangama Deva and not Linga Deva in all our future publications,” she said. Mathe Mahadevi had confirmed this stand in a statement in 2017, she said. Mathe Gangadevi, who succeeded Mathe Mahadevi, is the present seer of the peetha.