Allama Prabhu

Allama Prabhu (Kannada: ಅಲ್ಲಮ ಪ್ರಭು) is a mystic-saint and Vachana poet (called Vachanakara) of the Kannada language in the 12th century. Prabhu is the patron saint (Prabhu, lit, "Master"), the undisputed spiritual authority, and an integral part of the Lingayata (lit, "Devotees of the god Para-Shiva or Lingadeva") movement that decisively shaped society in medieval Karnataka and forever changed the contour of popular Kannada poetry. He is normally included among the "Trinity of Lingayatism" – along with Basavanna, the founder of the movement, and Akka Mahadevi, the most prominent woman poet. The socio-religious movement they pioneered used poetry (called Vachana Sahitya, lit, "Vachana literature") to criticise mere ritual worship and the caste-based society, and gave importance to moral values and love of mankind. It is well accepted that though Basavanna was the inspiration behind the Veerashaiva movement and earned the honorific "elder brother" (anna) at the "mansion of experience" (Anubhava Mantapa), Allama was the real guru who presided over it.

According to the scholars K. A. Nilakanta Shastri and Joseph T. Shipley, Vachana literature comprises pithy pieces of poetic prose in easy to understand, yet compelling Kannada language. The scholar E. P. Rice characterises Vachana poems as brief parallelistic allusive poems, each ending with one of the popular local names of the god Shiva and preaching the common folk detachment from wordly pleasures and adherence to devotion to the god Shiva (Shiva Bhakti).