Hero Stones from Palamaner Mandal of Chittoor District, Andhra Pradesh: A Historical Study

Hero stones, in factual sense regarded as one of the means of remembering deceased persons who perhaps devoted their life for the cause of the society irrespective of caste, status, religion and creed. The word Hero- Stone is described in various sources as stone image, Veerakallu ( in Telugu), Nadukal( in Tamil), Veeragallu(in Kannada), Veeragal( in Marathi), etc., as ‘Veera' mean a ‘Warrior' and ‘Kallu' or ‘Gallu' mean ‘Stone', which has been derived from two languages- ‘Veera' from Sanskrit and Kallu from Kannada. Palamaner (13.2000ºN; 78.7500ºE), a Mandal head quarters with population of 51,165 and a total population of 81,470 (2011 census) inhabiting in 15 village panchayaths with an extent of 79.50 sq.km. lies in the north, north-east of Baireddipalli Mandal, west to Bangarupalam Mandal, south of Gangavaram Mandal and forms border to Tamil Nadu and Karnataka States in the east and west respectively and Venkatagiri Kota Mandal lies to its south. It is drained by Kaudinya river in its north-eastern corner adjoining the eastern hill-forest cover zone which is famous for elephants sanctuary. Being close to Karnataka and Tamil Nadu States border people here bear a mixed culture. The present paper deals with 10 hero stones found at 7 villages in the Palamaner mandal of Chittoor district. These are varied in nature as some of them poses hero fighting a tiger, hero shooting at a lion , hero with a sati and hero with animals and birds.These are analysed into 10 categories of broad perspective.