Materials for the Study of the Early History of the Vaishnava Sect c8.86

c8.86

A Besnagar inscription⁴ of the second century B.C. mentions the erection of a flagstaff with an image of Garuḍa at the top in honour of Vāsudeva by Heliodora, an ambassador of the Greek king Antialkidas, who was a *Bhāgavata*. Another epigraph of a slightly later date, evidently from Besnagar, records the erection of a Garuḍa column "of the excellent temple (*Prāsādottama*) of the *Bhagavat*" by Gautamîputra.........a *Bhāgavata*, in the twelfth year after the installation of the Great King Bhāgavata. A third monument of about the same date has been discovered in the same locality in which Mr. Chanda recognises the remnant of a *Makaradhvaja* or a “crocodile column” which is the emblem of Pradyumna, the son of Vāsudeva. The Ghosūṇḍī Inscription,¹ probably engraved a little earlier, speaks of a *pūjā* stone wall for the worship of Bhagavat Saṅkarshaṇa and Vāsudeva. Another inscription probably of the first century B.C. existing at Nānāghāṭ² contains an adoration of Saṅkarshaṇa and Vāsudeva.³