Social and religious ideas expressed in different historical sources:

(i)    Different types of religious structures are stupas, monasteries, temples etc. If these typified certain religious beliefs and practices, others have been reconstructed from textual traditions, including the Puranas, many of which received their present shape around the same time, and yet other remain only faintly visible in textual and visual records.

(ii)    New textual sources available from this period include compositions attributed to poet-saints, most of whom expressed themselves orally in regional languages used by ordinary people. These compositions, which were often set to music, were compiled by disciples or devotees, generally after the death of the poet-saint.

(iii)    What is more, these traditions were fluid-generations of devotees tended to elaborate on the original message, and occasionally modified or  even abandoned some of the ideas that appeared problematic or irrelevant in different political, social or cultural contexts. Using these sources thus poses a challenge to historians.

(iv)    Historians also draw on hagiographies or biographies of saints written by their followers (or members of their religious sect). These may not be literally accurate,but allow a glimpse into the ways in which devotees perceived the lives of these path breaking women and men.

(v) In the course of the evolution of these forms of worship, in many instances, poet-saints emerged as leaders around whom there developed a community of devotees. Further, while Brahmanas remained important intermediaries between gods and devotees in several forms of bhakti, these traditions also accommodated and acknowledged women and the “lower castes”, categories considered ineligible for liberation within the orthodox Brahmanical framework.

(vi) The twelfth century witnessed the emergence of a new movement in Karnataka, led by a Brahmana named Basavanna (1106-68) who was initially a Jaina and a minister in the court of a Chalukya king. His followers were known as Virashaivas (heroes of Shiva) or Lingayats (wearers of the linga). Lingayats continue to be an important community in the region to date.