State and Government in Ancient India c11.19

c11.19

Village communities, however, inspired intense local patriotism, and scores of cases are on record of people of all classes and castes dying in the defence of the village or its cattle. Numerous *vīrgals* or hero-stones, that are particularly common in the Deccan and south India, show that when the safety of the village was threatened, people from all castes came forward to fight and die for the community; we sometimes find even women fighting and dying on such occasions.¹