JOIN USA heroic stone dating back to the era of Keladi rulers of the 16th century has been discovered in Hosagaddebayalu of Tuluvinakoppa village in Balehonnur on Saturday.
Amateur researcher N Suresh Kalkere said that the ‘Santarasas’ ruled the region of Kalasa with Karkala as their capital. Bhairava rulers and Keladi rulers engaged in frequent fights over territory. River Seeta in Koppa taluk was the border between the two kingdoms and between 1662 and 1672, Somasekhara Nayaka, a Keladi ruler defeated Kalaladevi queen of Karkala Kalasa at Bagguji, the capital of the latter.
The commander of the Keladi army was martyred during the battle and the hero stone found in Balehonnur was installed in his memory. The hero stone is 70 cm in length and 45 cm in width and is divided into three parts.
The topmost part shows the inscription of a soldier and a ‘Nandi’, the bull seated on either side of a ‘Shivalinga’. Sun and Moon are engraved above the Shivalinga. In the middle frame of the hero stone, a soldier in a standing portion surrounded by women is portrayed. In the last frame, male and female soldiers are seen fighting with bows, arrows and swords.
Four other stone slabs are also installed on the front side and next to the hero stone, which indicates that four wives of the martyred soldier immolated themselves. All the five stone slabs are surrounded by a stone enclosure measuring 120 cm in circumference. The people refer to such kind of structure commonly as ‘Rathada Kottige’.
The chariots would stop at the place of the hero stones during car festivals during the 1960s, said N Suresh.