Historical Geography of Ancient India c10.433

c10.433

The inscription on a stone column at Besnagar, discovered by J. H. Marshall, the then Director General of Archaeology in India, records the erection of a column surmounted by *Garuḍa* in honour of Kṛṣṇa-Vāsudeva by the Greek ambassador Heliodoros, son of Dion, when he had been crowned twelve years.¹⁴ Heliodoros, an inhabitant of Taxila, was sent by the Greek king Antialcidas to the court of king Kautṣiputra-Bhāgabhadra who was apparently reigning at Vidiśā. Although a Greek he was called a Bhāgavata, who, according to V. A. Smith, is credited with a long reign of thirty-two years.¹⁵ On this column he caused to be incised some teachings of his new religion which he probably embraced at Vidiśā. These teachings are contained in the two lines engraved on the other side of the column. The Bhāgavata of the *Purāṇas* may be the corrupt form of Bhāgabhadra who was a Śuṅga prince reigning at Vidiśā, probably as *Yuvarāja*, just as one of his predecessors Agnimitra was during the reign of his father Puṣyamitra, as we learn from Kālidāsa's *Mālavikāgnimitra*. Bhāgavata, i.e., Bhāgabhadra has been assigned by V. A. Smith to circa 108 B.C.¹ The attention of J. H. Marshall who examined the ancient site of Vidiśā was drawn to a stone-column standing near a large mound, a little to the north-east of the main site, and separated from it by a branch of the Betwā river. The shaft of the column is a monolith, octagonal at the base, sixteen sided in the middle, and thirty-two sided above with a garland dividing the upper and middle portions. The capital is of the Persepolitan bell-shaped type with a massive *abacus* surmounting it, and the whole is crowned with a palm-leaf ornament of strangely unfamiliar design. This column has been worshipped by pilgrims from generations to generations. Marshall thinks that the column was many centuries earlier than the Gupta era.² King Bhāgabhadra mentioned in the inscription was the son of a lady belonging to Banares (*Kāśīputrasa*). Fleet has taken *Kāśīputrasa* to mean that he was the son of a lady of the people of Kāśī, or the son of a daughter of a king of Kāśī.³