The Heliodorus pillar is a stone column that was erected around 113 BCE in central India in Besnagar. A dedication written in Brahmi script was inscribed on the pillar, venerating Vāsudeva, the Deva deva and the Supreme Deity. Two major archaeological excavations in the 20th-century have revealed the pillar to be a part of an ancient Vaisudeva temple site.
About Heliodorus pillar in brief
The Heliodorus pillar is a stone column that was erected around 113 BCE in central India in Besnagar. A dedication written in Brahmi script was inscribed on the pillar, venerating Vāsudeva, the Deva deva and the Supreme Deity. The pillar is one of the earliest surviving records of a foreign convert into Vaishnavism. Two major archaeological excavations in the 20th-century have revealed the pillar to be a part of an ancient Vaisudeva temple site. After the discovery of the pillar in 1910, a small Indian archaeological team revisited the site and found a crowning emblem that was the crowning structure of a Garuda-style tree. Later research showed that the fan palm pinnacle could not fit the pillar and the inscription on the pillars suggested that the pillar was the emblem of a different deity, and that it was a temple of the Vrishni heroes. The site is located near the confluence of two rivers, about 60 kilometres northeast from Bhopal, 11 kilometres from the Buddhist stupa of Sanchi, and 4 kilometres from the Hindu Udayagiri site. The locals at the time called the pillar the Khamba Baba or Kham Baba. It was first discovered by Alexander Cunningham in 1877 near the ancient city of Besngar in neighbourhood of Vidisha in central Indian. When Cunningham first saw it, the pillar. was thickly encrusted with ritually applied red paste. This encrusting pillar was.
the object of worship and ritual animal sacrifice. The Besnagar region was historically important because it was on the trade route between the northern Gangetic valley, the Deccan and the South Indian kingdoms of the subcontinent. It is at the northeastern periphery of a confluence, and close to Sanchi and U dayagiri, both ancient and of significance to Buddhism and Hinduism. A short distance away, Cunningham found a second pillar capital on the ground with an emblem in the form of a makara. He assumed, based on the shape of the bell, which he considered true Ashokan proportions, that this broken part was part of a lost pillar of the same period. The fan-palm design is otherwise known to be associated to the cult of Samkarsana-Balarama, another one of. the V Krishni heroes, and Cunningham assumed this discovery too was related to the Besn Nagar site. He also guessed there may be an inscription below the crust, and reported the pillar as, ‘the most curious and novel’ of all his discoveries. He saw no inscription due to the thick crust surrounding the pillar but nevertheless sensed its historical significance from the shape and the visible features such as the Crowning emblem, carved fan, rosettes, the faceted symmetry merging into a round section. The pillar also glorifies the Indian ruler as ‘Bhagabhadra the savior’
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This page is based on the article Heliodorus pillar published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 14, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
