The Kalamukhas The Kalamukha ascetics inhabited mainly the Karnataka region during the eleventh, twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. The name Kalamukha, sometimes spelt as Kalamukha, may refer to their practice of marking their foreheads with a black streak. Apart from the remarks of Yamunacharya and Raminuja the sources for the Kalamukhas are nearly all epigraphic ores. Judging from the large number of epigraphs recording donations to Kalamukha temples and mathas, these ascetics must have wielded considerable influence in the Karnataka region. They also served as the rajagurus of the Chalukya kings. The Southern inscriptions reveal the existence of at least two major divisions of the Kalamukha order—the Saktiparishad and the Sithhaparishad. The number of extant Saktiparishad epigraphs is much greater and they have been found at a larger number of sites. Four separate subdivisions of the Saktiparishad are distingui- shed, and it may be assumed that some others also existed whose names have not survived. The most prominent division was centred in the Kedaresvara temple at Belagave in Shimoga District. The form of Siva who presided over the Belagave temple was Dakshina- KedareSvara. : According to Ramanuja the Kalamukhas held the following as the means for attaining desires concerning this world and the next : eating food in a skull, besmearing the body with the ashes of a dead body, eating the ashes, holding a club, keeping a pot of wine and worshipping the gods as seated therein. No religious text of the Kalimukhas is extant, and the religious information contained in the inscriptions tends to discredit rather than corroborate Yamunacharya and Ramanuja on the doctrines of the Kalamukhas. More importantly, the recordsindicate that the Kalémukhas were an offshoot of the Pasupatas: (1) Both these sects revered the legendary teacher Lakulisa. (2) The ascetics of both adopted similar or identical names and undertook pilgrimages to Kedaranitha and Sriparvata, (3) The philosophical content of the Tévara-kart-vada propounded by the Kalaémukha munisvara Bonteyamuni of Hombal is little different from the Pasupata doctrine of ISvara as Cause (karana) of the material universe (kdrya). (4) Inscriptions at Nesargi and Sirasangi seem to equate famukha, Mahdvratin and Mahapasupata. (5) Lakulasid- dhinta, the Doctrine of Likula, was one of the chief subjects studied at the Kodiya-matha of the Kalamukhas. Several interesting similarities are found also between the Somnath Pasupatas and the Southern Kalamukhas. The Chintra prasasti of 1287 A.D. records the consecration of five lifiga temples in Somnath; and the Pajfichalifga temple in Belagave in South belonged to the Kalamukhas. The five lifgas at Somnath were consecrated by a priest named Tripurantaka; and one of the Kalamukha temples in Belagave was dedicated to the god Tripurintaka. The Somnath Tripurantaka’s preceptor was Valmikiraéi; this name is also found among the early priests of the Mivara-koneya-santati of the Southern Kalamukhas. The Somnath record describes a pilgrimage undertaken by Tripurantaka during which he visited two sites with important Kalamukha associations— Kedara in the Himalayas and Sriparvata in Kurnool District. These similarities show that the PaSupatas and Kalamukhas con- tinued to share a large body of common traditions in addition to having a common base in the teachings of Lakulisa. The second of the two known parishads of the Kalamukhas is the Sithhaparishad or Lion Assembly. Grants to temples of this Parishad have been found in the Guntur, Bellary, Bijapur and Gulbarga Districts, But this group was less influential then the Saktiparishad, or at least received less royal and official support. In addition to the records left by the Sakti- and Sithha-pari- shads, there are a large number of Kalimukha epigraphs which cannot with certainty be said to belong to either organization. These epigraphs are approximately contemporary with and are spread over approximately the same regions as those of the two known Parishads. It is fairly certain that most, if not all, Kalimukha priestsclaimed Brahmana Status. This we gather from a 1113 A.D, inscription which calls Somesvara of Belagave a Sarasvata, from a few scattered references to the gotras of the Kalamukha Priests, and from the common ending to many of their names—panditadeya,