Note 41 — L

The Lingāyat faith appears to have spread very rapidly after Basava’s death, which may be placed in the year 1168, and Rice says that, according to tradition, within sixty years of the founder’s death it was embraced from Ulavi near Goa to Sholāpur, and from Balehalli to Sivaganga. The disappearance of the Chalukyan dynasty is in itself evidence of the rising power of the Lingāyats. But no real estimate can be made of its progress at first. More than a hundred years later, the Muhammadan invaders took possession of the Deccan, and other religions were driven southwards. The Empire of Vijayanagar, which is said to have covered the whole country from the Kistna to Cape Comorin, rose out of the ruins of the Hindu kingdoms, and as Mr. Sewell says,41 the fighting Kings of Vijayanagar became the saviours of the south for two and a half centuries. The early members of this dynasty were Saivaites in faith, but there is no record of the workings of the reformed religion, which had spread southwards before Vijayanagar became a power.