Hadapada Appanna (ಹಡಪದ ಅಪ್ಪಣ್ಣ)

What if you offer food?
What if you offer wealth?
What if you offer woman?
What if you offer the world?
They say it brings merit.
Where is the question of merit or sin?
Have they created what they offer?
It is like offering river water back to the river
and say like the poor Brahmins it brings them merit.
Without realizing the pure and eternal supreme linga
if you perform any of these
it is fruitless
says our Basavapriya Koodala Chennabasavanna. [Vachana No.2134] ^[1]

HadapadaAppanna was the aide of Basavanna and he followed the occupation of carrying the betel leaves nut in a box for the sharanas.Lingamma was his wife. Chennabasaveshwara was his guru.

He was with Basavanna when he went to Koodalasangama after the revolution at Kalyaana. He returned to Kalyaana to fetch Neelamma just as Basavanna ordered him but Basavanna was no more by the time came back. Then Neelamma and Appanna merged with the lord at Koodalasangama.

There is a sculpture depecting Appanna in the Shivotsava mantap of Madhukeshwara temple of Banavasi. Appanna has written more than 200 vachanas with the signature Basavapriya Koodala Chennabasavanna.

Father, your sharanas will not
put on disguise to beg for food;
they will not speak the language
learnt in traveling;
they speak well;
they act without desire;
they speak without anger;
they listen without ecstasy;
they touch without animosity;
they dwell where there is friendship.
Thus mixing yet rootless
to such a truly united one I salute.
Basavapriya Koodala Chennabasavanna
how do I know the stature of such sharanas? [Vachana No.2135] ^[1]

Does he who can push the sky
have obligation of the ladder?
Does he who concentrates his mind on one
have obligation of any other form?
Does he who has lost the pair of like and dislike
have obligation of this world?
Such wisdom is available for the sharana
who has united with you
and not for the men of this world
Basavapriya Koodala Chennabasavanna. [Vachana No.2137] ^[1]