MANUAL OK THE NILAGIRT PISTRICT. 225 



There is nothing very remarkable about their dwellings. CHAP. IX, 

 They are ordinary cottages or huts built of stones or mud, with PART V. 

 a substantial roof of thatch, which is gradually giving place to ethnoTogy. 



tiles as the people become more wealthy. There are lofts over 



each house, and the back eaves are sometimes closed in so as to ^^^^^^^^gs- 

 form an additional room. There is generally a verandah with 

 a pial in the front of the house, and a terrace for thrashing and 

 winnowing grain; whitewash is a good deal used, and of late years 

 their houses have been much improved. They are built in lines 

 .with occasionally an intervening street. They contain but 

 little furniture : a rice-pounder, a few brass salvers, and a mortar 

 made in the floor being all the necessary additions to a Badaga 

 dwelling. 



The Badagas are Hindus of the Siva sect, but their form of the Religion, 

 worship of Siva has lost much of its purity since their settlement 

 in the Hills and intercourse with the more savage tribes about 

 them. A small number belong to the sect called Lingayats, of 

 whose origin in Mysore Mr. Rice gives the following account : ^ 



" About 1160, little more than 40 years after the establishment of the 

 Vaishnava faith in Mysore by Ramanuja Chari, arose the well known 

 sect of Siva- worshippers called Lingayats, chiefly composed of the 

 Kanada and Telugu-speaking races. 



" ^dsava, the founder of the sect, whose name literally means bull, 

 and 3 in fact regarded as the incarnation of Nandi, the bull 

 of Si. His political career has been sketched in connection with the 



history of the Kalachuryas. He was the son of an Aradhya Brahman, 

 a native of Bagwadi in Belgaum. According to the legends, he 

 refused to wear the Brahmanical thread because its investiture 

 required the adoration of the sun, and repaired to Kalyana, the capital 

 of Biggala, where he became, as elsewhere related, the prime minister, 

 and where he founded the new sect. 



" Its distinctive mark was the wearing on the person of Sbjungama 

 lingam or portable linga. It is a small black stone, about the size of 

 an acorn, and is enshrined in a silver box of peculiar shape, which is 

 worn suspended from the neck or tied round the arm. 



"Basava rejected the authority of the Vedas and the Brahmans, 

 togfather with the observances of caste, pilgrimage and penance. 

 .■ '■' * « * « * 



" The Lingayat faith soon spread through the north-west of Mysore, 

 and, according to tradition, within 60 years of Basava's death, or 

 1108 — 1228, it was embraced from Ulovi near Goa to Sholapore, and 

 fropa Ballehalli in Balehonnur to Sivaganga. It was the state 

 religion of the Wodeyars of Mysore from 1399 to 1610." 



' See Rice's Manual of Mysore and Coorg. 



39 



