Bengaluru's stories in stone

When you are stuck in a chronic traffic jam on Bengaluru’s Hebbal flyover, you are a short walk away from a 1,300-year-old trace of a city that had yet to take shape. Tucked off Ballari Road stands a mantapa built in the Ganga dynasty-style of architecture. Inside this temple-like structure is a weathered granite slab etched with two figures: one standing tall with a bow and dagger facing a mounted attacker holding a spear.

This is the 8th-century Hebbal-Kittaya hero stone. It tells the story of an Ur-alivu, a terminal attack on a village. It does not celebrate a distant ruler, but a man named Kittaya who stood his ground when his community was under threat. Unlike the grand, impersonal monuments of modern warfare, this stone is deeply personal. It names the fallen hero and marks the exact spot where the person lost his life for the village’s survival.

Across Bengaluru, around 80 such recorded ancient hero stones are scattered in plain sight — from the quiet, wooded corner of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) to the temple courtyards of Begur. These Veeragallus are reminders of an era when honour and protection of the community were central values.

At first glance, these stones may merely seem like decorative carvings. But for a history enthusiast they are storyboards. Usually divided into three panels, the bottom of the stone slabs captures battle scenes. The middle panel shows celestial nymphs (apsaras) carrying the hero towards heaven and the top depicts the hero in eternal peace before a deity. Some hero stones with inscriptions offer rare details about the lives of
Bengaluru’s early residents.

But what were these heroes defending? Often, it was the village’s livelihood. In a pastoral society, cattle were the primary form of wealth; a raid was an economic strike. Many of Bengaluru’s hero stones are Turugol (cattle-rescue) stones.

The Begur Turugol Veera records the death of Bydukura Kerega in the 10th century during a fierce struggle to reclaim stolen livestock. Similarly, a stone from Dodda Toggur (now in a JP Nagar residence) shows us that South Bengaluru’s suburbs were once high-stakes grazing grounds where such conflicts were common.

Bengaluru’s ‘birth certificate’

The most well-known of these memorials sits at the Begur Panchalingeshwara temple complex. This 900 CE hero stone commemorates Buttanapatti, son of the chieftain Nagattara, and his adopted son Pervvonashetti, who fell in the ‘Battle of Bengaluru’. This hero stone is, in a way, the city’s biography, containing the earliest known mention of the name ‘Bengaluru’ (recorded as ‘Bengulooru’), proving the name we mutter today has echoed across these ridges for over eleven centuries.

Conflict didn’t always come from human raiders. The 10th century IISc Hulibete Veera takes us back to a landscape of forests and apex predators. It depicts a hero (now no longer visible, as the stone is fragmented) in a fatal struggle with a tiger during a hulibete (tiger hunt). A similar stone in Madivala, near BTM Layout, serves as a reminder that these modern residential hubs were once the literal edge of the wild.

These stones were not just about grief; they were social contracts too. When a hero fell, local rulers often granted Kodige (also called Kalnad), a tax-free land, to the family. Sacrifice was remembered through the material security of those left behind.

Some stones also capture intense spiritual devotion, like the 13th-century Domlur stone that commemorates three individuals who offered their lives in atma balidana (self-sacrifice). Their carved figures are preserved in stone, facing the Domlur Chokkanatha temple. Nearby in Dodda Nekkundi, a 10th-century Mahasati stone records a woman who committed Sati, a sombre record of the era’s social expectations.

Reflecting on the record

These memorials tend to cluster in the 9th-10th and 13th-15th centuries — periods of intense social change. Even specific acts of bravery are etched here. For instance, the 15th-century stone of Kodikara Bommu from Madhure (near Hesaraghatta) shows a pilgrim returning from Tirupati who took down the bandits attacking him before he finally fell.

Today, we walk past these granite slabs without a second glance. Yet, they are the most authentic records of the people who laid the foundation of Bengaluru city. The Hebbal-Kittaya stone does not speak of distant rulers, it speaks of a citizen who stood his ground. In a city constantly reinventing itself, these hero stones remain grounded, reminding us that our history is etched into the very stones of the streets we walk.

(The author is the Honorary Project Director, the Bengaluru Inscriptions 3D Digital Conservation project, the
Mythic Society)

(Click on bit.ly/herostonesblr to explore an interactive Hero Stone map developed by the Mythic Society’s Bengaluru Inscriptions Digital Conservation Project)

The fragmented 10th-century Hulibete stone at IISc depicts a struggle with a tiger with only the hero’s bow remaining visible. Photo by author

The 900 CE Begur inscription highlights the names Buttanapatti and Pervvonashetti and contains the earliest known mention of ‘Bengulooru’. Photo by author

The 13th-century Domlur self-sacrifice memorial depictis three figures. Photo by author