The Chalukyan Architecture of the Kanarese Districts c44.9

c44.9

Hero or memorial stones, known as vīragals, or vīrakals, or Vīra-Śasadas, are very widely distributed over the Kanarese districts, either singly or in groups (Plates CIII—CLVI). Like the others, they are upright slabs of stone upon the faces of which are horizontal bands of sculpture with inscribed bands between. The lowest band, or bands of sculpture, usually represents a battle scene in which the hero, of gigantic proportions, to whose memory the stone has been raised, is causing havoc all around him. The next bands show him being carried to paradise after his death, and seated in that elysium surrounded by fair attendants waiting to do his will. The uppermost compartment contains representations of various objects of worship and symbols of the religion to which he was attached when living. The inscriptions upon the bands between the sculptures record the death of the hero, which may have taken place in battle, in reclaiming stolen cattle, in self-defence against robbers or in the hunting field. Some, again, record deliberate suicides. At Baḷagāmve there is a lofty Gaṇḍa-bhēruṇḍa column over thirty feet high, which is described further on, near which is a vīrakal on it being a representation of this column, down beside which is a man lying prone upon a row of spikes or stakes. An inscription upon it tells us that a certain man, after making a grant to the temple, climbed to the top of the column and leaped thence on to the points of spears, and gained the world of the gods.² This was in A.D. 1060, thirteen years after the erection of the column.