Paper short abstract:

This paper seeks to explore the complex intersticing of power, memory and gender through an analysis of the virakals (hero-stones) which are found along the western coast of India and also in Tamil Nadu. . It will be argued that the hero stones were not merely sepulchral in character, but were nodes in a larger network of ritual and societal practices using literary evidence as well as ethno-archaeological and historical evidence.

Paper long abstract:

There has recently been an increased engagement with time and memory in archaeology, often responding to related debates in the social sciences , especially as a response to practice theories which emphasize the embodied nature of power through the internalization of daily social and ritual practices. This paper seeks to explore the complex intersticing of power, memory and gender through an analysis of the virakals (hero-stones) which are found along the western coast of India and also in Tamil Nadu. The virakals have been suggested to be the product of the 'heroic society' which existed in South India in the Early Historic period. These were monuments erected to commemorate heroes and seem to have, played a seminal role in the creation and reinforcement of certain gender ideologies through crystallizing the societal ideal of a hero. It will be argued that the hero stones were not merely sepulchral in character, but were nodes in a larger network of ritual and societal practices using literary evidence from the Early Historic (Sangam) texts as well as from ethno- archeological and inscriptional evidence. The creation of social memory through embodied practice of worshiping the hero-stones, which was subsequently used to legitimize a certain conceptualization of masculinity and femininity and in subversion and transgression using the same medium of monumentalisation is also sought to be explored. In sum, the paper will attempt to understand the negotiation of gender and by extension power through the medium of social memory by a multi disciplinary approach using historical, archaeological, anthropological insights and evidences.