Eksar Hero Stones: Protecting Mumbai’s Maritime Memory

If you live in or visit Borivali West, you can pass through Eksar and see little beyond towers, traffic and a metro station. That ordinary experience conceals an extraordinary question: how did a modern Mumbai neighbourhood come to hold six monumental memorial stones, including one carved with masted fighting ships?

You don’t have to settle every disputed date before helping to protect them. You do need to know which claims are firm, which remain proposed, and what responsible action looks like when heritage survives inside a private residential compound.

Key takeaways for visitors and heritage advocates

• Eksar retains six viragals, or hero stones. The first three are recorded as approximately 10 feet high, 3 feet wide and 6 inches thick.
• The clearest maritime evidence is visual: five masted vessels, oars and armed people appear in one stone’s lowest panel. The identification of a particular dynasty or battle is a separate, more uncertain question.
• Moti Chandra dated the viragals to the eleventh century, while proposed historical associations extend from 1019 through the twelfth century to 1265. A responsible label must not collapse those distinct claims into one certain date.
• Survival is not the same as preservation. A stone can remain physically present while losing its setting, public visibility, interpretation and place in community memory.
• If you want to help, begin with permission and a dated photographic baseline. Do not trespass, touch the carvings, make rubbings, apply chalk or clean the surfaces yourself.

Read the stones as memorial narratives, not decorative slabs

A viragal commemorates a person remembered for a heroic act, commonly a warrior, soldier or rescuer. Such stones occur widely across Maharashtra and southern Bharat. The word combines the sense of hero with the Kannada word for stone and passed into Marathi usage, although dagad is the ordinary Marathi term for stone. At Eksar, this memorial tradition becomes unusually important because naval conflict appears within the carved imagery.

These are not battle maps in stone. They arrange human action, death, honour, worship and passage to a divine realm as a moral sequence. The first three viragals are each recorded with four panels. On the first two, the eye moves from violence in the lower registers toward Indraloka, Sivaloka or Kailasa above. If you photograph only the most dramatic fighter or ship, you amputate that sequence and misrepresent the memorial.

The first stone: combat, death and ascent

The lowest panel of the first viragal contains horsemen, swords and a fallen archer. Other registers show an archer confronting mounted opponents, a foot soldier using a lance, elephants carrying archers, and dead warriors proceeding through the clouds. The upper imagery carries the story beyond the battlefield: apsaras guide the dead toward Sivaloka, a man and woman worship a Sivalinga, music is performed, and a relic casket appears above.

Notice what this structure asks a viewer to remember. Valour is not isolated from its spiritual consequence or from the rituals of those who survive. The hero’s death becomes part of a Dharmic moral universe. When documenting this stone, capture the complete vertical composition first, then each register, and finally the links between adjacent registers.

The second stone: royal warfare and Konkan identity

The second viragal opens with corpses, apsaras showering flowers, and a king, general and minister mounted on elephants. The fighting includes an elephant seizing and trampling a man, a ruler attended by an umbrella bearer and another attendant, mounted combat, and massed figures. Its upper register depicts Kailasa, the honoured warrior, garlands, music, dance and a relic casket.

Large round earrings on some warriors have been read as a Konkan marker, consistent with an observation attributed to the Arab traveller Sulayman. Treat details of clothing and ornament as evidence, not as automatic name tags. An earring may help place a figure within a regional visual culture; it cannot, by itself, identify that figure’s ruler, army or battle.

The third stone: ships that change the historical picture

The third viragal contains the scene that makes Eksar indispensable to Mumbai’s maritime history. Its bottom register shows five ships fitted with masts, nine visible oars along one side and armed people on deck. Women appear at the bow of the last vessel, leading to the tentative suggestion that it may represent the king’s ship.

Keep the distinction between observation and interpretation intact. Five vessels, masts, oars, armed figures and women are carved features. A royal vessel is a plausible reading, not a carved caption. The identity of the fleet and the battle to which it belonged are proposed historical associations. Good public interpretation makes those levels visible instead of converting every possibility into a fact.

Use the same discipline when you examine any of the six stones:

• Begin with the complete slab and identify its panel boundaries.
• Describe visible forms before assigning identities: ship, mast, oar, bow, rider, elephant, weapon, garland, shrine or casket.
• Separate damage and weathering from intentional carving. A broken line is not evidence of a vanished weapon unless a qualified specialist can demonstrate it.
• Record uncertain readings with words such as possible, probable or unidentified.
• Preserve the untouched master photograph. Any contrast enhancement or proposed reconstruction should be saved separately and clearly labelled.

Why a Borivali monument belongs to the history of sea power

Eksar mattered because it formed part of the strategic landscape around Sopara, the prized port approximately 38 kilometres from Eksar. Control of a port meant control over movement, revenue, supplies and military access. A settlement on the approach to such a port could therefore become part of a much larger contest, even if its present-day streets no longer reveal that geography.

Three conflicts have been proposed as contexts for the Eksar memorials. They should be presented as a historical range, not merged into a single convenient story.

The dating problem deserves special attention. Moti Chandra placed the viragals in the eleventh century, but the proposed battle contexts include events substantially later than that. This does not license a casual choice of whichever date sounds most dramatic. The stones could relate to different episodes, some associations could require revision, or the dating of particular objects could differ. Without stronger object-by-object evidence, a label should state both the scholarly dating and the range of proposed contexts.

A useful interpretation panel would therefore use three levels of confidence:

• Observed: the stone carries ships, masts, oars and armed figures.
• Interpreted: the scene represents organised naval combat, and one vessel may have royal associations.
• Proposed historical context: the imagery may relate to one of several struggles for the Sopara region between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries.

That careful wording does not weaken the importance of Eksar. It strengthens it. The carvings already refute a landlocked picture of medieval Bharat: sea power, armed vessels and contested ports belonged to the political world remembered on the Konkan coast. They do not need a false precision to matter.

What endangered heritage means when the stones still exist

Calling the Eksar viragals endangered should not become an unsupported allegation that they are about to be demolished. What can be established is that the six stones are housed within the Club Aquaria compound amid intensive high-rise development. The nearby Eksar Gaon Devi Temple, another surviving clue to the older settlement, is likewise visually overwhelmed by the modern city.

That situation creates four distinct preservation problems:

• Material integrity: carved stone can be harmed by unsuitable cleaning, abrasion, paint, oils, water retention, vibration, accidental impact or unplanned construction. These are risks to inspect, not damage to allege without dated evidence.
• Loss of setting: when towers and private boundaries sever a monument from its village, temple and coastal history, the object may survive while the landscape that explains it disappears.
• Loss of access: heritage inside a private compound can become invisible to the wider public. Protection and access are not identical, but a site without any reliable viewing or digital record is easily forgotten.
• Loss of meaning: without an accurate panel guide, a visitor may see weathered stone rather than a memorial narrative connecting warriors, ships, ritual and sacred realms.

Use precise language when you advocate for the site. Say that the stones are vulnerable to loss of context, public visibility and interpretation. Do not claim that they are structurally unstable, legally unprotected or scheduled for removal unless you possess current evidence for those statements. Precision makes it easier for property managers, officials and specialists to act on a request rather than defend themselves against an accusation.

The Gaon Devi Temple should be documented as part of the surviving cultural landscape, but its relationship to the viragals must also be stated carefully. Their proximity makes them important witnesses to Eksar’s older civic and sacred geography; proximity alone does not prove that the temple and every stone share the same date.

A preservation plan Mumbai residents can begin

If you are a resident, teacher, local history group member or concerned Mumbaikar, your most useful contribution is a reliable baseline followed by narrow, achievable requests. A viral photograph without context may create attention for a day. A permission record, object inventory and written conservation request can support decisions long after the social-media cycle ends.

1. Establish lawful access. Contact the property manager or residents’ association, explain that you want to create a non-invasive heritage record, and ask for written permission. Do not enter restricted premises or direct a crowd toward a private access point.
2. Create a photographic baseline. Take one view showing the stones within their setting, one straight-on full-height image of each stone, one image of every panel, and side views showing thickness, base and nearby drainage. Photograph the Gaon Devi Temple and the visual route between the surviving sites only where access is lawful and respectful.
3. Keep a field log. Record the date, photographer, permission contact, image filenames and viewing conditions. Give the stones neutral working identifiers such as EKS-01 through EKS-06, clearly noting that these are modern documentation labels rather than historical names.
4. Separate observation from inference. For each stone, list panel count, visible figures, ships, animals, weapons, ritual objects and obvious surface changes. Put proposed identities and battle associations in a separate field. Record historical measurements as reported measurements unless you can verify them without touching the stone.
5. Prevent well-intentioned damage. Do not wash the slabs, scrape growth, trace carvings with a hard object, make paper rubbings, apply chalk, add paint or place a scale directly against the surface. Religious reverence does not make an improvised treatment safe; any cleaning or ritual substance should be discussed with the custodial community and a qualified stone conservator.
6. Submit a focused preservation request. Ask for a professional condition assessment, a written no-impact protocol for nearby maintenance or construction, review of drainage and physical clearance, accurate interpretive signage, and a defined form of public access. If routine access is impractical, request scheduled viewing and a high-resolution digital exhibit.
7. Route the dossier without guessing jurisdiction. Send the same dated package to the site custodian, relevant municipal heritage or planning office, state archaeology authority, and a qualified university history, archaeology or conservation department. Ask each recipient to confirm whether it has jurisdiction and, if not, to identify the responsible office.
8. Publish with restraint. Share dated photographs, permission status and clearly labelled interpretations. Do not announce damage you have not verified, expose unofficial entry routes, or digitally reconstruct missing carvings without marking the reconstruction as hypothetical.

A practical request can be brief: Please arrange a professional condition survey of the six Eksar viragals and establish a no-impact maintenance protocol while their conservation and public interpretation are reviewed. We also request a panel-by-panel digital record and a lawful viewing arrangement that respects residents’ security.

Interpretive signage should be useful at the stone, not merely celebratory. It needs a diagram of the four registers, a close view of the ship panel, the measured dimensions, a distinction between observed imagery and proposed battle identities, the relationship to Sopara, and a note connecting the stones with Eksar Gaon Devi. Marathi and English versions would make the record usable both locally and beyond Mumbai.

Do not begin by demanding relocation. Moving a large carved slab can damage it and sever whatever physical context remains. The first question is whether the stones can be professionally conserved, interpreted and made responsibly accessible in place. Relocation should follow a qualified assessment of necessity, destination, handling and long-term care, not the momentum of a campaign.

Your first move can be modest: send one permission request and prepare the field log before visiting. Once a trustworthy baseline exists, use it to secure a condition assessment and a public interpretation plan. That is how six difficult-to-read stones can become part of Mumbai’s living memory instead of anonymous objects behind its newest skyline.

References

• Dharma Dispatch — Eksar Viragals: A Lapsed Heritage Devoured by Urbanisation