Basava Puranam
poem
The Basava Puranam is a 13th-century Telugu epic poem written by Palkuriki Somanatha. It is a sacred text of the Veerashaiva tradition. The epic poem narrates the life story of philosopher and social reformer Basavanna (1134–1196 CE), also known as Basavaṇṇa, Basavēśvara, Basavēśa, and Basavarāja, the founder of Shiva-Sharana. It is also an anthology of several Veerashaiva saints (also known as Shiva Sharan's, Surrendered devotees of Lord Shiva) and their philosophies.
In contrast to champu style (poems in verse of various metres interspersed with paragraphs of prose), Somanatha adopted the desi (native) style and composed the purana in dvipada (couplets), a meter popular in oral tradition and closely related to folk music.
In 1369, the Basava Puranam was translated to Kannada by Bhima Kavi. This version contains detailed descriptions of the life of Basava and came to be considered his standard biography. There are several Kannada and Sanskrit Lingayat puranas inspired by Bhima Kavi's Basava Puranam.
This Telugu puranam was first translated into English by C.P. Brown, a British administrator in colonial south India, in 1863.
Translations
Siva's Warriors: The Basava Purana of Palkuriki Somanatha, Tr.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Basava Puranam” as poem. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as poem. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 24, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q16315782. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1134, 1196, 1369 and 1863.
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This entry incorporates text from “Basava Puranam” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.