Bengaluru, June 5: Some Veerashaiva-Lingayat seers, backed by Sangh Parivar, on Sunday appealed to Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai to survey the ‘Peer Pasha Bangla’ in Basavakalyan in Bidar district, claiming that it was the original ‘Anubhava Mantapa’, the sacred seat of the founder of Lingayat sect and 12th-century social reformer Basaveshwara.
“The first parliament of the world, Anubhava Mantapa now happens to be the Peer Pasha Bangla (Bungalow), which requires immediate protection and a survey by the Archaeological Survey of India,” the seers said in a joint statement.
The seers, led by Sharanu Salagar, BJP MLA from Basavakalyan, and Pradeep Kankanvadi, president of Veerashaiva-Lingayat Sanghatana Vedike, called on Bommai at his residence. In their memorandum, the seers said that it has come to their knowledge from local sources as well as documents that ‘Peer Pasha Bangla’, a dargah or a mausoleum of a Muslim saint, is actually the original ‘Anubhava Mantapa’.
They demanded that the State should make a proposal to the Centre to release Rs 500 crore for the ‘Anubhava Mantapa' corridor under which the sites related to Basaveshwara should be identified and preserved. They further said the Anubhava Mantapa should be developed as a major Lingayat study centre in Basavakalyan.
According to Girimalleshwara Swamiji of Tapovana Matha in Shahpur Taluk in Yadgir district, Bommai assured the seers that all the documents would be examined and a meeting with the officials convened in this regard. Lingayat is a major sect and dominant community in Karnataka, to which Basavaj Bommai and his immediate predecessor B S Yediyurappa belong.
The demand for a survey of ‘Peer Pasha Bangla’ comes close on the heels of Hindu organisations staging a demonstration in Srirangapatna in Mandya district on Saturday demanding a survey of Jamia Masjid, claiming that it was a Hanuman temple, which the 18th-century Mysuru ruler Tipu Sultan had razed and built a mosque there.
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