Memorial stones, also called as hero stones are stone inscriptions erected to honor the death of a person who died fighting a war or battle to protect his village or region.
It is found in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, etc.
In Karnataka it is called as veeragallu, in Maharashtra it is called as veeragal.
Usually they are in the form of a stone monument and may have an inscription at the bottom with a narrative of the battle. According to the historian Upinder Singh, the largest concentration of such memorial stones is found in the Indian state of Karnataka. About two thousand six hundred and fifty hero stones, the earliest dated to the 5th century have been discovered in Karnataka.
This hero stone is normally divided into 3 parts, upper part will have a God’s image like a Shivalinga, middle part will depict the journey to heaven and last part at the bottom will have the description of the battle.
Few pics of veeragallus from Karnataka.
All the above pics taken from Wikipedia belongs to olden times like 10th, 12th century, etc.
But I found one interesting picture in FB today, it was a pic of hero stone in a place called Badami in Karnataka, of a soldier who was martyred during 1999 Kargil war.
Attaching the pic.
We can see a Shivalinga on the top, they have written date as May 27, 1999.
Below we can see image of Kargil war.