Ārādhyas, as has been indicated, differ from other Brāhmans in general in some of their customs. Before they partake of food, they make an offering of it to the lingam which they are wearing. As they cannot eat without making this offering, they have the entire meal
served up at the commencement thereof. They offer the whole to the lingam, and then begin to eat. They do not accept offerings distributed in temples as other Brāhmans do, because they have already been offered to the God, and cannot therefore be offered again to the lingam. Unlike other Lingāyats, Ārādhyas believe in the Vēdas, to which they give allegorical interpretations. They are fond of reading Sanskrit, and a few have been well-known Telugu poets. Thus, Pālapūri Sōmanātha,who lived in the fourteenth century A.D., composed the Basava Purāna and the Panditārādhya Charitra, and the brothers Piduparthi Sōmanātha and the Basavakavi, who lived in the sixteenth century, composed other religious works.
Ārādhyas marry among themselves, and occasionally take girls in marriage from certain of the Niyōgi sub-divisions of the Northern Circars. This would seem to show that they were themselves Niyōgis, prior to their conversion. They do not intermarry with Āruvēlu Niyōgis. Unlike other Brāhmans, they bury their dead in a sitting posture. They observe death pollution for ten days, and perform the ekodishta and other Brāhminical ceremonies for their progenitors. They perform annually, not the Brāhminical srādha, but the ārādhana. In the latter, there is no apasavyam (wearing the sacred thread from right to left), and no use of gingelly seeds and dharba grass. Nor is there hōmam (raising the sacrificial fire), parvānam (offering of rice-balls), or oblation of water. Widows do not have their heads shaved.
