The Body Is the Only Temple You Were Given
Basavanna wrote this in the 12th century, in Kannada, addressed to a deity he called Kudala Sangama Deva: "The rich will make temples for Siva. What shall I, a poor man, do? My legs are pillars, the body the shrine, the head a cupola of gold." He was a minister at the court of King Bijjala in Kalyana, a man with institutional power, and he still chose to locate the sacred not in stone but in the body doing its daily work.
