Basava Jayanti 2023: Basava Jayanti is a regional government holiday in Karnataka.  It is celebrated on the third day of Shukla Paksha (18th day) in the month of Vaisakha. This implies it falls in either April or May in as per the Western calendar. This year the festival falls on April 23, 2023.

Basava Jayanti is Traditionally observed by the Lingayats in the Indian state of Karnataka, Basava Jayanthi marks the birth anniversary of Basavanna, a twelfth-century poet-philosopher who was the founding saint of the Lingayat sect.

Basavanna was born in 1105 CE in the northern part of Karnataka, to a Kannada family devoted to Hindu deity Shiva.
Several important Lingayat works are credited to Basavanna, including Vachana such as the Kala-jnana-vachana, Shat-sthala-vachana,  Mantra-gopya, Ghatachakra-vachana and Raja-yoga-vachana.

The Ling ayats are a Hindu sect with a wide following in southern India that worships Shiva as the only deity. He grew up in Kudalasangama and married the daughter of the prime minister.

As the administrator of the royal treasury, Basava helped to spread the Lingayat sect by teaching and by dispersing funds to Lingayat guilds. Basavanna believed that every human being was equal, irrespective of caste and that all forms of manual labour were equally important.

Basava promoted the wearing of a necklace with a pendant that contains a small votary object symbolizing Shiva called a Linga, from which the Lingayats get their name. He is also known as Bhaktibhandari (literally, the treasurer of devotion), or Basaveswara (Lord Basava).

Basavanna also holds the distinction of being the first Kannadiga to have a commemorative coin, which was minted in recognition of his social reforms.

Akshaya Tritiya 2023: What Everything you need to know about the Festival