A Hero Stone (Veergal in Marathi, Veeragallu in Kannada or Naṭukal in Tamil)
Is essentially a memorial commemorating the honorable death of a hero, usually in battle.
The nature of the hero’s death sometimes necessitates the need for an additional lower panel to add further clarity to the story of his demise. So a battle scene may be followed by a scene showing the hero lying dead next to cattle, indicating that he was protecting his herd. In the case of the hero stones at Umbardi, it would appear that here they all died in arm to arm combat, and the subtle variations in the narrative are absent.click here to Learn more.
Animated battle scenes depicting how our heroes died in battle in Umbardi.उम्बार्डी येथील युद्धात आपले वीर कसे मरण पावले हे दर्शविणारी अॅनिमेटेड युद्ध दृश्ये
Likewise the form of the hero stone itself can add further colour. Whilst the vast majority of these memorials consist of a single slab carved on just one side, you can also find pairs of panels carved on one side of the stone, possibly indicating the death of relatives. This extends further to examples where the memorial consists of a square column with panels carved on all four sides. Of course we will never know if this implies the deaths of related people, or whether all the warriors died during a single incident, as the vast majority of these stones have no accompanying inscription.
उम्बार्डी येथील युद्धात आपले वीर कसे मरण पावले हे दर्शविणारे अॅनिमेटेड युद्ध दृश्ये. उम्बार्डी येथे युद्ध आपल्या वीर कसे मरण पावले हे दर्शनीरी अॅनिमेटेड युद्ध दृश्ये तसेच नायकाच्या दगडाचे स्वरूप देखील अधिक रंग भरू शकते. या स्मारकांपैकी बहुतेक स्मारकांमध्ये फक्त एका बाजूला कोरलेल्या एकाच स्लॅबचा समावेश असला तरी, तुम्हाला दगडाच्या एका बाजूला कोरलेल्या फलकांच्या जोड्या देखील आढळू शकतात, जे कदाचित नातेवाईकांच्या मृत्यूचे संकेत देतात. हे अशा उदाहरणांपर्यंत विस्तारते जिथे स्मारकात चौकोनी स्तंभ आहे ज्याच्या चारही बाजूंना कोरलेल्या फलकांचा समावेश आहे. अर्थात, हे संबंधित लोकांच्या मृत्यूचा अर्थ दर्शवते की सर्व योद्धे एकाच घटनेत मरण पावले हे आपल्याला कधीच कळणार नाही, कारण यातील बहुतेक दगडांवर कोणताही शिलालेख नाही.
Sometimes the hero stones are accompanied by inscriptions narrating the act of the hero, the details of the battle and the warrior who fought the battle. In Maharashtra the existence of such inscriptions is extremely rare.
कधीकधी वीरांच्या दगडांसोबत वीराच्या कृतीचे, युद्धाचे तपशील आणि लढाईत लढणाऱ्या योद्ध्याचे वर्णन करणारे शिलालेख असतात. महाराष्ट्रात अशा शिलालेखांचे अस्तित्व अत्यंत दुर्मिळ आहे आणि मी आतापर्यंत ज्या ठिकाणी भेट दिली आहे तिथे मला अद्याप कोणतीही उदाहरणे सापडलेली नाहीत.
A hero stone was usually divided into three panels, although this was no fixed rule and depending on the event four or five panels can also occur. The carvings appear on one side of the upright stone, in the case of the more typical and simplistic three panel layout, the narrative is as follows :
Most of these stones were erected between the 3rd century BCE and the 18th century CE, and can be found all over India, although the higher concentration of them appears to occur in south India. It is thought that Karnataka alone has over 2,500 examples of these memorial stones with their origins dating back to the Iron Age.
एक वीर दगड सहसा तीन पॅनलमध्ये विभागला जात असे, जरी हा निश्चित नियम नव्हता आणि घटनेनुसार चार किंवा पाच पॅनल देखील होऊ शकतात. उभ्या दगडाच्या एका बाजूला कोरीवकाम दिसून येते, अधिक सामान्य आणि सोप्या तीन पॅनल लेआउटच्या बाबतीत, कथा खालीलप्रमाणे आहे:
