Within the Lingayat tradition, the rhythm of the year is marked above all by festivals that bind devotion to Shiva with remembrance of the community’s reformist saints. Foremost among these is Basava Jayanti, which celebrates the birth of Basavanna (Basaveshwara), the twelfth‑century social reformer who stands at the heart of Lingayat identity. This day is observed with prayers, processions, community gatherings, and often with recitation of vachanas and reflection on Basava’s teachings on social equality and spiritual discipline. In many places, the celebration naturally extends into acts of *dasoha*—the sharing of free community meals—and public discourses on the ideals of *kayaka* (dignity of labor) and service.

Alongside this, Maha Shivaratri occupies a central place as the great night of Shiva, the supreme focus of Lingayat devotion. Lingayats mark this festival with night‑long vigils, fasting, and intense worship, directed both toward Shiva in a broader sense and specifically toward the personal iṣṭaliṅga that each adherent wears and venerates. Visits to mathas and Shiva temples, collective prayers, and contemplative practices turn the night into a sustained meditation on the presence of Shiva in the devotee’s own life. In this way, Maha Shivaratri becomes not merely a calendrical observance, but a concentrated expression of the Lingayat understanding of direct, personal communion with the divine.

The community also honors a wider circle of saints and spiritual exemplars through various *Jayantis* and Sharana‑focused observances. Akka Mahadevi Jayanti and Allama Prabhu Jayanti, for example, commemorate the lives of these major poet‑saints of the vachana tradition, whose words continue to shape Lingayat spirituality. More broadly, “Sharana festivals” and other regional commemorations celebrate the many sharanas whose lives embodied both radical devotion to Shiva and a commitment to social transformation. These gatherings typically center on the singing and study of vachanas, communal meals, and reflection on how the saints’ insights into equality, justice, and inner realization might be lived in everyday conduct.

In many local contexts, additional commemorations arise around the ideals of *dasoha* and the legacy of the Anubhava Mantapa, the historic assembly of sharanas associated with Basavanna. Such observances, whether tied to particular mathas or to the memory of specific saints, keep alive the sense that Lingayat festivals are not only occasions for ritual, but also for renewing the community’s ethical and social commitments. Through this tapestry of Basava Jayanti, Maha Shivaratri, and the various Jayantis and Sharana festivals, Lingayat practice continually weaves together devotion to Shiva with the enduring call to spiritual equality and social reform.