a deified hero and teacher, and Arjuna his noblest disciple. But both of them were receiving divine honours; they had been men, and were now gods, with bands of adorers.
Our next evidence is an inscription found not long ago on the base of a stone column at Besnagar near Bhilsa, in the south of Gwalior State,[1] and must have been engraved soon after 200 B.C. It reads as follows: "This Garuḍa-column of Vāsudēva the god of gods was erected here by Heliodorus, a worshipper of the Lord [bhāgavata], the son of Diya [Greek Dion] and an inhabitant of Taxila, who came as ambassador of the Greeks from the Great King Aṃtalikita [Greek Antialcidas] to King Kāśīputra Bhāgabhadra the Saviour, who was flourishing in the fourteenth year of his reign"; and below this are two lines in some kind of verse, which announce that "three immortal steps ... when practised lead to heaven — self-control, charity, and diligence." Here, then, in the centre of a thriving kingdom probably forming part of the Śuṅga empire, Vāsudēva is worshipped not as a minor hero or teacher, but as the god of gods, dēva-dēva; and he is worshipped by the Greek Heliodorus, visiting
- ↑ See Rapson, Ancient India, p. 156 ff., Cambridge Hist. India, i, pp. 521, 558, 625, H. Ray Chaudhuri, Materials for the Study of the Early History of the Vaishnava Sect, p. 59, and Ramaprasad Chanda, Archæology and Vaishnava Tradition in Memoirs of the Archæological Survey of India, No. 5, p, 151 ff, etc.
