First, a bit of context. When and where were these hero stones made? They're a particular fixture of the Deccan - the yellow bit in the map here - from roughly 600 CE onwards till well into the 1300s. This is also, not coincidentally, the period when the Deccan began to see a systematic trend towards complex agrarian polities. As you can imagine, that's great for ambitious warlords.
(Image source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:India_755_CE_(Prototype_Test).png. There's an error, Manyakheta didn't exist in 755.)
Now for the interesting bit: what is a hero stone? Simply put, as Deccan states grew more and more militarised, they found that they had more and more military "heroes" to celebrate. But hero stones don't just commemorate wars: you'll see memorials to dead hunters, cattle-rustlers, ascetics, devoted wives. They can be crudely-shaped rocks made by local artisans or elegant gnomons cut by master sculptors in cosmopolitan cities.
@AKanisetti I read somewhere that there are a few of these stones lying around in Bangalore city
@ppmanik there are a LOTTTTT of them!! 🤓
@AKanisetti one for sure is there in Yelahanka old Vishnu temple.
