structural:scholar_edition
Social reform

Basava taught that every human being was equal, irrespective of caste, and that all forms of manual labor was equally important. Michael states that it wasn't birth but behavior that determined a true saint and Shaiva bhakta in the view of Basava and the Sharanas community. This, writes Michael, was also the position of south Indian man, that it was "behavior, not birth" that determines the true man. One difference between the two was that Sharanas welcomed anyone, whatever occupation he or she might have been born in, to convert and be reborn into the larger family of Shiva devotees and then adopt any occupation he or she wanted. Basava insisted on ahimsa or non-violence and vehemently condemned all forms of sacrifices, human or animal.