International Journal of History

Death is an accidental event in human life. The feeling that death is for the body and not for the soul led to the attitude of maintaining his existence even after death. Such an attitude gave way to the cremation rites of the dead body in later days. Emotional relationships with a dead person, while instilling love in him, would instils fear of his death. This love mixed with fear led to the practice of cremation in human history and the practice of erecting monuments to commemorate the dead. In the present article it is explained that hero stones are a unique type of monumental sculpture among inscriptional types. Their nature is briefly described in the hero stones, which is identified separately in the inscription types. Hero stones found in Karnataka from Badami Chalukyan period (500 A.D.) to 18th century. Hero stones were originally (first) cultural objects and then art mediums. Memorial stones are a type of bulge sculpture. A sculpture that appears to bulge forward from a flat background is called a bulge sculpture. The bulge sculpture give a perfect depiction of the event in stages simultaneously.

Karnataka can be called the heartland of South India's hero stones. As far as Karnataka is concerned, the hero stones here have history of about 1500 years. Over such a long period of time, hero stones have grown by incorporating the social, religious and cultural aspects of their respective times. Hero stones are usually seen with an inscription along with the sculpture. Innumerable hero stones with only bare sculpture are found in Karnataka. The inscriptions on some of the hero stones contain information about the erectors, along with a description of the purpose for which they were erected. From their perusal it is clear that there are two reasons for erecting hero stones, worldly and paramarthika. If the worldly reason is to let the world know the prowess of the dead hero, and thereby put forward his ideal, and if the rest of them will also fight like him, then the otherworldly reason is to decide that it is their first duty, and let the dead hero attain heaven, Kailasa, Vaikuntha or Siddhaloka. The hero stones of Karnataka, when compared to other hero stones sculptures of India, are distinguished by their mature narrative style and lively expression. The true narrative of the event for which the hero sacrificed his life is presented in the hero stones of Karnataka with some examples.

At the beginning of the article a list of types of hero stones is given namely Yuddha Veeragallugalu, 'Turugol', 'Penbuyyal', Kote-Kalaga, Gadi-kalagad, Uralivu or Ura Huyyalu, Nentanedar, 'Eravesa', Bete veeragallugalu etc.. The hero stones of those who died fighting with animals can be divided into tiger hunting hero stones, pig hunting hero stones, elephant hunting hero stones, deer hunting hero stones, snake hunting hero stones and hero stones of heroes who died in the context of horse taming. The article has brief explanation of hero stones as well as tiger hunting hero stones with inscription and tiger hunting hero stones without inscription. At the end of the article some photographs of the tiger hunting hero stones are given.