HEROSTONES OF SOUTH INDIA 41 Herostones are mentioned in Akananum and Pumnanwu and other poems traditionally classified as Smgwi poems. Tolkekppi^am (a grammati-' cal work of the Sangam age) on the date of which there m wide disagreement among literary scholars, and Pumpporul Venbamalai, a later text of the eighth century AD, also refer to the monuments erected to kings, generals and other members of the elite who fell in battle as natukal (erected stone). There are only few references to herostones for common soldiers who died fighting for their liege-lords and for folk heroes who were -killed in clashes with marauders, cattle-lifters and invaders. In other words, elite hero-stoncs find more frequent mention than folk herostones. There were sculptured as well as unsculptured pieces of stone standing, to the memory of fallen heroes, at street and road junctions^ with no edifice or structure over them. The sculptured stones arc called Katavul eluthia kal9 (Stone inscribed by God) in Sangam classics. Most of these stones pay homage to the valiant deaths of kings and generals. For example Puram 231 announces the death of Athiaman Netuman Anji from spear wounds sustained jn battle.4 Puram 243 speaks of the herostone erected to honour his memory.6 Auvai (gs^CTw) has written an elegiac poem in Puram in which she mourns the deaths other patron. Ordained Rituals Auvai's poem says that Athiaman becomes a stone and was fed with sacrificial food in a small bowl.8 The stone itself is described as adorned with a peacock feather, an indication that it must have been unsculp" tured. The peacock feather adornment and food and drink offerings were part of sacrificial rituals. References to such stone rituals are found in Akam, Puram and other Sangam texts although Mayilai Seeni Venkata-swamy observes that herostones which strictly pertain to the Sangam age have not been unearthed.7 We find descriptions ©f rituals in Sangam classics and prescribed forms of worship in Tolkappiyam, which appear to be propitiation rites for the disembodied souls of the royal and military dignitaries. The herostones were set up originally on sites near to where thfe heroes met their death, or to where they were buried. When cremation of the dead became a common practice, the stones began to be placed in the villages where the heroes were born or where members of the family lived. It appears that at the root of this practice was the belief' in the divisible nature of the soul a part of which can inhabit a tre'6, animal^ bird or stone. This ^belief prevails among many tribal people today, and was quite common in ancient communities, Transmigration is implied in the order of ritual for the erection of herostones. Tolkappivam ordains six ceremonies. They arc (1) Kafchi (tfjrtlfi): Discovery; (2) Kalkol ( Erection; (5) Perumbatai (OL/źdujssyL-.): Pood offering and (1) Valtku {e^ir^/s^i): Invocation and blessing.