“Lingayat getting religion status will not harm Hinduism in any way,” Sri Siddarama Swami of Gadag Tontadarya Math said in Dharwad on Sunday.
“It is wrong to think that Lingayat getting religion status will harm Hinduism. That will not happen. The primary reason for it is that Hinduism is not a religion in the first place. It is a way of life,” he said.
He was speaking after a meeting of some Lingyat Math seers that discussed various issues, including status of religion for Lingayat.
“A religion is defined as set of beliefs and rituals that are started by one person. It should consist of a group of people who follow one holy book that can be considered its constitution. All the devotees should be worshipping one God. None of these are true with Hinduism. It was not founded by one person, its followers do not worship one God, but believe in 33 crore Gods. The devotees do not follow one holy book. The Bhagavad Gita that has 18 chapters and it does not use the word Hindu anywhere. We cannot find the word Hindu in any of the other holy scriptures like Upanishads or Vedas. It can be called Vedic religion. But some people have changed to Hinduism,” he said.
“The movement for Lingayat religion is not anti-Hindu. Lingayat claiming a distinct identity as a religion will not be detrimental to the interests of Hinduism in anyway,” he said.
He said that Lingayat has all the necessary features to be recognised as religion.
To a query, he said that it is a wrong notion that non-Hindus like Jains, Buddhists or Sikhs are the enemies of Hindus. “It is not so. They are groups of people following different faiths. They are not even ideological opponents,” he said.
He demanded that the State government send the Justice Nagmohan Das report on religion status for Lingayat to the Union government once again.
To a query, he said that he is opposed to equating Lingayats and Veerashaivas as they are both different. “It is wrong to argue that the two should be treated equally or that they should be included in the OBCs list together,” he said.
