This article has developed in response to a series of observations made over a decade ago by Wilfred Cantwell Smith in his The Meaning and End of Religion. In that work, Smith made the point that the concepts ‘religion’, ‘religions’, ‘Hinduism’ and ‘Buddhism’ are rather recent, of Western origin, and, in an attempt to understand mankind's religiousness, inadequate. In developing his argument, Smith considered the Buddhist case with penetrating insight but, because his thesis was of such comprehensive scope, chose not to go into a detailed consideration of relevant matters in the Theravāda Buddhist tradition.

The mystical experiences of the ṛṣis, the spiritual giants of the early Vedic times, led to the creation of the Vedic hymns and eventually to the formation of the whole elaborate structure of the Vedic religion, as upheld by the Indian priesthood. But there were obviously others who pursued mystical experiences without themselves engaging, like the ancient ṛṣis, in attempts to transmit their experiences through mythological poetry and religious leadership. They adopted mystical ecstasy as their way of life. Mysticism as a conscious way of life is, in India, called Yoga. Being outside the trend of Vedic mythological creativity and the Brāhmanic religious orthodoxy, the Yogis of Vedic times left little evidence of their existence, practices and achievements. And such evidence as has survived in the Vedas is scanty and indirect.

The Judeo-Christian mystical tradition is replete with accounts of visions. But the perceptual experiences reputedly involved in these visions are often problematic. The prophet Isaiah (of Jerusalem) is reputed to have seen God in a mystic vision; St Francis to have seen Christ and received the stigmata; Julian of Norwich to have seen Christ's passion; St Teresa of Avila to have seen Christ, the devil, seraphim, and various Saints. Yet at least two fundamental questions immediately arise concerning the perceptual awareness involved in such visionary experiences. First, how could Jewish or Christian mystics have any reasonable certitude of correctly identifying such extraordinary entities as God, angels, and deceased Saints, as figures in their visions? And second, while Catholics, for example, see the Virgin Mary during their visions, Muslims see Muslim saints and Hindus see Hindu deities: why then do mystics tend during their visions to perceive entities which accord with their expectations, entities which are usually regarded as possessing special religious significance exclusively within each mystic's own religious tradition?

The fruit of several centuries of rationalistic thought in the West has been to reduce both the objective and the subjective poles of knowledge to a single level. In the same way that the Cogito of Descartes is based on reducing the knowing subject to a single mode of awareness, the external world which this ‘knowing self’ perceives is reduced to a spatio-temporal complex limited to a single level of reality – no matter how far this complex is extended beyond the galaxies or into aeons of time, past and future. The traditional view as expressed in the metaphysical teachings of both the Eastern and Western traditions is based, on the contrary, upon a hierarchic vision of reality, not only of reality's objective aspect but also of its subjective one. Not only are there many levels of reality or existence stretching from the material plane to Absolute and Infinite Reality, but there are also many levels of subjective reality or consciousness, many envelopes of the self, leading to the Ultimate Self which is Infinite and Eternal and which is none other than the Transcendent Reality beyond. Moreover, the relation between the subjective and the objective is not bound to a single mode. There is not just one form of perception or awareness. There are modes and degrees of awareness leading from the so-called ‘normal’ perception by man of both his own ‘ego’ and the external world to awareness of Ultimate Selfhood, in which the subject and object of knowledge become unified in a single reality beyond all separation and distinction.

Mystics have always claimed that a very significant kind of self-perception is possible, at the end of certain spiritual disciplines. The self that is then supposed to be known is a unity, identical from one experience to the next, and not to be identified with any particular experiences, such as impressions or ideas, which the self has. In short, mystical testimony supports something like a theory of the essential self as simple and unchanging.

The purpose of this essay is to investigate and critically analyse some of the formative factors which led to the spiritual maturation of a leading Vīraśaiva saint, Basava (1106–68). This inquiry focuses on a single event in the life of this great reformer of medieval times, i.e. his spiritual conflict leading to his rejection of the upanayana (investiture of the sacred thread) ceremony. The study will proceed through an investigation of the earliest and subsequent sources which veil the personality of Basava. The traditional view will be challenged as one-sided. By critically comparing the sources, a more comprehensive and plausible account will be suggested.