[12] THE CONCEPT OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN BASAVANNA VACHANAS: A CRITICAL STUDY

ARTICLE INFO: Date of Submission: Mar 25, 2026, Revised: Apr 3, 2026, Accepted: Apr 05 , 2026, CrossRef d.o.i : https://doi.org/10.56815/ijmrr.v5i4.2026.135-151. Devesha C D & Purushotamma H P (2026). The Concept of Human Rights in Basavanna Vachanas: A Critical Study, International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research & Reviews 5(4). 135-151.

Abstract

This study undertakes a systematic critical analysis of the concept of human rights as embedded in Basavanna's Vachanas, examining: (i) the philosophical foundations of The Vachana literature of twelfth-century Karnataka, composed by the Sharanas (saint-poets) under the spiritual and social leadership of Basavanna (Basaveshwara, c. 1105–1167 CE), constitutes one of the most remarkable pre-modern articulations of human rights principles in world literary history. Written in vernacular Kannada—a deliberate political act against Sanskrit Brahminical hegemony—the approximately 2,650 authenticated Vachanas attributed to Basavanna contain sophisticated and systematic critiques of caste discrimination, gender inequality, occupational hierarchies, exploitative labour relations, and the denial of spiritual autonomy. These critiques anticipate, by seven centuries, the philosophical foundations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR, 1948) and the Indian Constitutional provisions on equality, non-discrimination, and dignity. human rights discourse in Veerashaiva theology; (ii) specific Vachanas addressing equality, labour dignity, women's rights, anti-caste praxis, and freedom of conscience; (iii) the institutional embodiment of human rights in the Anubhava Mantapa; (iv) comparative mapping with UDHR articles and Indian Constitutional provisions; and (v) the contemporary relevance of Vachana human rights philosophy for Dalit, feminist, and subaltern political movements. Employing a multidisciplinary critical approach combining close textual reading, historical contextualisation, comparative philosophy, and postcolonial literary theory, this study analyses 89 key Vachanas from the authenticated corpus. The theoretical framework draws on Ambedkarite anticaste philosophy, feminist literary criticism, Foucauldian discourse analysis, and postcolonial human rights theory (Baxi, 2002; Mignolo, 2000). The study demonstrates that Basavanna's Vachanas contain a coherent, radical, and systematically articulated human rights philosophy that: categorically rejects caste-based discrimination eight hundred years before the Indian Constitution's Article 17; affirms the dignity of manual labour through the Kayaka doctrine, anticipating ILO labour rights conventions; establishes women's equal participation in the Anubhava Mantapa, prefiguring democratic participation rights; articulates the Dasoha principle of redistributive justice, anticipating welfare rights; and asserts freedom of conscience against priestly intermediation, anticipating UDHR Article 18.