History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v3.c33.11

v3.c33.11

From Mathura, Al-Beruni takes us southward to Ujjain via two or three towns not recognisable. But Bhāilsān (Bhailla-svāmin), or modern Bhelsa is mentioned and the important statement made that Bhaillasvāmin was the name of the idol there and the town was named after the idol. Bhaillasvāmin is mentioned in inscriptions (vide Vol. II p. 127) and this statement of Al-Beruni gives us for the first time the reason of the name of the town. Then again the word Svāmin shows that it was an idol of Viṣṇu and we further remember that there was a famous temple near Bhelsa of Viṣṇu on whose Garudastambha an inscription of a Yavana Buddhist king, as old as the first century B. C. has been found. In Sanskrit literature the name of the town, however, is Vidiśā.