Journal of Religion and Violence

Volume 6, Issue 2, 2018

Suicide, Martyrdom, and Violence

Speculation on Hindu Self-Sacrifice Imagery at Nalgonda

This is a study of ca. 13th–14th century self-sacrificial memorial stones (vīrakkal) from Nalgonda, India. Suicide is usually condemned, but sometimes accepted as self-sacrifice, during periods of social upheaval or religious crisis. The article asks why and when voluntary death was accepted in the medieval Indian culture of the Deccan Plateau. The hero stones discussed here probably represent Hindu Vīraśaiva worshippers. Hindu monotheistic Śaiva Vīraśaivism originated in The South-West of the Indian Deccan Plateau in the 10–11th centuries, then travelled to the Southeast of the Deccan by the 13th–14th centuries. Vīraśaivism (“The Heroic Worship of Śiva”) reflects distinctive elements of medieval South India. It upended Brahmanical authority, gender and caste exclusions, and it reflected the merger of the transgressive religious devotionalism of Tantra and Bhakti. Vīraśaivism also reflected the social, and biological stressors of the day, such as Hindu inter-sectarian tensions, Muslim invasions, civil warfare, famine, and epidemic disease.