Person · Greek ambassador · India
Heliodorus of Taxila
The envoy sent by the Indo-Greek king Antialcidas of Taxila to the Shunga court at Vidisha around 110 BCE, who set up a Garuda pillar to Vasudeva there and described himself in its inscription as a Bhagavata — a devotee.
- Function
- Authority & administration
- Confidence
- Not assessed
- Location
- 23.530, 77.810
Worth knowing
The inscription is the earliest surviving evidence of Vaishnava devotion and the earliest of a Greek adopting an Indian religion, and both facts rest on one short Prakrit text cut by a foreign diplomat.
About the place
Placed at Besnagar beside Vidisha, where his pillar still stands. He came from Taxila, which is a separate entry, and nothing else is known of him.
Connections (2)
- Imperial inscription atHeliodorus pillar, Vidisha
Heliodorus came to Vidisha about 110 BCE as ambassador of the Indo-Greek king Antialcidas of Taxila, and set up a Garuda column to Vasudeva with an inscription describing himself as a Bhagavata, a devotee. It is at once the earliest surviving evidence of Vaishnava worship and the earliest of a Greek adopting an Indian religion, and both rest on one short Prakrit text cut by a foreign diplomat who had no reason to lie about his own devotion.
- Epigraphic record atYavana / Yona
Heliodorus put up a Garuda pillar at Vidisha and described himself on it, in Prakrit, as a Yona — a Greek ambassador from Taxila calling himself a Bhāgavata. The word India used for foreigners is there being used by the foreigner about himself, in an Indian language, on an Indian religious monument, which is about as complete a case of the name being accepted as the record allows.
Sources
Wikipedia, “Heliodorus pillar”. The Heliodorus pillar inscription (Besnagar), Epigraphia Indica X; D.C. Sircar, Select Inscriptions I.
Open Heliodorus of Taxila in the repository →