It is generally conceded that in the Veerashaiva Faith there are five Prophets and they are ALLAMA PRABHU, BASAVANNA, AKKAMAHADEVI, CHANNABASAVANNA and SIDDHARAMA. The life and teachings of the these Prophets have been delineated here. Akkamahadevi is the Prophet of emotion, Basavanna is the Prophet of action while Allam Prabhu is the Prophet of intuition or he is the MESSIAH.
In the words of Sri Aurobindo, "The Messiah is the Divine seer will descending upon the human consciousness to reveal to it the Divine meaning behind our half-blind action and to give along with the vision the exalted will that is faithful and performs, and the ideal force that executes according to the vision."
Basava flourished in the 12th century in Karnataka. He was a Prime Minister to King Bijjala who ruled from 1157 to 1167 over Kalyana, a city of historic importance. Basava was indeed a great prophet; for in him we find the combination of rare qualities. He was a mystic by temperament, an idealist by choice, a statesman by profession, a man of letters by taste, a humanist by sympathy and a social reformer by conviction. Basava strove hard to bring about reformation in Hinduism into which social evils had crept in.
Akka Mahadevi was born about 1150 A.D. at Udutadi, a place of historical importance in Shimoga District of Karnatak State. Her parents, Nirmalshetti and Sumati, were great devotees of Shiva. Akka Mahadevi, even when a young child, displayed her religious proclivities which she probably inherited from her parents. She was a paragon of beauty and princess of lyrical poetry. Her vachanas or sayings are a poetic testament of her mind's reaction to the wonder and awe of existence. Though the same wonder and poetry are there in her sayings, yet they are deepened and widened by the calm of meditation. Keen spiritual longing shifts the emphasis from the wonder of the outside universe to the significance of the self within. The quest for God, her favourite Channamallikarjuna, rekindled the emotional exuberance of her early poetic genius and compelled her inwards to explore the infinite depths of the soul in which the central principle of creation or God is reflected.
Akka Mahadevi started from Udutadi, arrived at Kalyana and proceeded to Shrishaila, the place of her last destination where she saw face to face God Channamallikarjuna and was absorbed by him in the plantain grove. This is indeed the secret union where the heart speaks to the heart.
Tradition maintains that Prabhu gave up his Holy Ghost in the plantain grove of Shrishaila. The terms plantain grove, Shrishaila or Tribhuvanagiri, Amrita, etc. are often met with in his sayings. The Plantain grove represents the body with a cluster of innumerable cells, ganglions and nerves; Shrishaila or Tribhuvanagiri, the Brahmarandhra; Amrita, the cerebrospinal fluid. There is a cavity in the brain and it is known as Brahmarandhra, or rather Brahmarandhra is the intercommunicating cavity of the four ventricles of the brain. Suxma Prana courses through this cavity and is continuous with the central canal of the spinal cord. This cavity is constantly secreting fluid which is otherwise known as vitality in occult science. If the nectar of life is preserved and made to course through the whole frame, then every cell of the body is charged with vitality. We must not confuse vitality with electricity. Its action differs in many ways from that of either electricity, light or heat. These cause oscillation of the atom as a whole, but vitality comes to the atom not from without, but from within. An atom then is nothing but the manifestation of a force. As vitality wells up from within, it weans the body from the inertia of matter and converts it into a force centre. The yogi, who has achieved this state, can materialize and dematerialize his body at will; and death cannot touch him.
Sri Siddharameshwar, one of the 12th century Prophets of Veerashaivism lived and left his mortal coil in Solapur.
This article - 'Prophets of Veerashaivism' - is taken from H.H.Mahatapasvi Shri Kumarswamiji-s book, 'Prophets of Veerashaivism'.
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