Rock anthems

Tens of thousands of hero stones - tiny rock memorials erected in honour of local heroes - lie scattered across southern India. Some are over 2,000 years old. Most pay tribute to men who died protecting cattle or communal land. The inscriptions tell tiny tales not just of heroism but also of who these people were and how they lived. Now a search is on to unearth them all

- Gowri S

How do we honour our dead? Around the world, and through history, the answers have varied.

The earliest signs we know of involve fragments of petals found at gravesites in a cave in Israel, dating to over 13,000 years ago. Stone memorials, from little cairns across Europe to the dolmens shaped like huts spread across peninsular India, date to between 8000 and 3000 BCE. These would evolve, over time, into crypts, memorial plaques, commemorative busts, tombstones.

Amid this timeline, about 2,300 years ago, a new kind of memorial began to dot the ancient Tamil-speaking landscape, appearing in parts of modern-day Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Puducherry, Kerala, Karnataka, and as far as Lakshadweep and Sri Lanka.

They were called nadukkal, or hero stones. Hundreds still stand, cared for, in many cases, by the descendants of the local villagers who erected them.

New efforts by the Tamil Nadu government and NGOs such as the Yaakkai Heritage Trust are now tracking and geotagging the tiny memorials, aiming to document when they were built, and why.

Most often, it turns out, the tribute was prompted by a heroic sacrifice made to protect cattle or land. Sometimes, a hero stone is dedicated to a person who fought off wild animals. Often, it memorialises a brave man; sometimes it is a woman or even a family. There are some dark tales here too; the women memorialised were typically widows who committed sati, immolating themselves on their husband's funeral pyre.

In rare instances, there have also been hero stones erected for a dog or rooster. In one instance, one was erected in honour of a selfless thief. (Read on for more on this.)