Heliodorus pillar
| Heliodorus pillar | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Period/culture | late 2nd Century BCE |
| Place | Vidisha, Madhya Pradesh, India. |
| Present location | Vidisha, India |
The Heliodorus pillar is a stone column that was erected around 113 BCE in central India[1] in Besnagar (near Vidisha, Madhya Pradesh). The pillar was called the Garuda-standard by Heliodorus, referring to the deity Garuda. The pillar is commonly named after Heliodorus, who was an ambassador of the Indo-Greek king Antialcidas from Taxila, and was sent to the Indian ruler Bhagabhadra.[2] A dedication written in Brahmi script was inscribed on the pillar, venerating Vāsudeva, the Deva deva the "God of Gods" and the Supreme Deity.[3][4][5][6] The pillar also glorifies the Indian ruler as "Bhagabhadra the savior". The pillar is a stambha which symbolizes joining earth, space and heaven, and is thought to connote the "cosmic axis" and express the cosmic totality of the Deity.[3]
The Heliodorus pillar site is located near the confluence of two rivers, about 60 kilometres (37 mi) northeast from Bhopal, 11 kilometres (6.8 mi) from the Buddhist stupa of Sanchi, and 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) from the Hindu Udayagiri site.[7]
The pillar was discovered by Alexander Cunningham in 1877. Two major archaeological excavations in the 20th-century have revealed the pillar to be a part of an ancient Vāsudeva temple site.[4][8][9] Aside from religious scriptures such as the Bhagavad Gita, the epigraphical inscriptions on the Heliodorus pillar and the Hathibada Ghosundi Inscriptions contain some of the earliest known writings of Vāsudeva-Krishna devotion and early Vaishnavism and are considered the first archeological evidence of its existence.[10][11][12][13][14][6] The pillar is also one of the earliest surviving records of a foreign convert into Vaishnavism.[15][6] [16]
Location and surveys[]
Survey by Alexander Cunningham in 1874-1875[]
The pillar was first discovered by Alexander Cunningham in 1877 near the ancient city of Besnagar in neighbourhood of Vidisha in central India. Besnagar was founded near the confluence of Betwa River and Halali River (formerly, Bais River and the basis for "Bes"-nagar).[17] The fertile 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.[17] The Besnagar site is at the northeastern periphery of the confluence, and close to Sanchi and Udayagiri, both ancient and of significance to Buddhism and Hinduism.[7][18]
When Cunningham first saw it, the pillar was thickly encrusted with ritually applied red paste (vermillion). This encrusted pillar was the object of worship and ritual animal sacrifice.[17] Next to the red-colored pillar was a high soil mound, and on top of the mound a priest had built his home and surrounded it with a compound wall.[17] The locals at the time called the pillar the Khamba Baba or Kham Baba.[17][19]
Cunningham, an avid British archaeologist credited with many discoveries of ancient sites on the subcontinent, saw no inscription due to the thick crust surrounding the pillar. He 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.[17] 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.[17] Near the standing Besnagar pillar, Cunningham found the remains of a fan-palm pinnacle, which he thought originally belonged to the pillar.[20] Assuming that this broken part was part of the standing pillar, he sketched a composite version.[20] The fan-palm design is otherwise known to be associated to the cult of Samkarsana-Balarama, another one of the Vrishni heroes.[21]
A short distance away, Cunningham found a second pillar capital on the ground with an emblem in the form of a makara (mythical elephant-crocodile-fish composite).[20] He assumed, based on the shape of the bell, which he considered "of true Ashokan proportions", that this broken part was part of a lost pillar of the Ashokan period.[20][17] Further, about a kilometer away, Cunningham found a third pillar capital of similar style, with an emblem in the form of a kalpadruma (wishing tree). Cunningham assumed this discovery too was related to the Besnagar pillar in some way.[22] The kalpa tree design is otherwise known to be associated to the cult of Sri Lakshmi.[23]
Later research showed that the fan palm pinnacle could not fit, and the discovery of the inscription on the pillar suggested that a Garuda emblem was crowning the structure.[24]
Second survey in 1909-1910[]
Between 1909 and early 1910, nearly 30-years after the pillar's discovery, a small Indian and British archaeological team led by H H Lake revisited the site.[25] After the thick red crust was cleaned out, they found Brahmi script inscriptions. John Marshall reported the discovered inscriptions, and to everyone's surprise, the longer inscription related to a Greek ambassador named Heliodorus of 2nd-century BCE and the deity Vāsudeva. An additional smaller inscription on the pillar listed human virtues, later identified to be from a verse of the Mahabharata.[22][26][27]
The pillar and the unusual inscriptions attracted two larger archaeological excavations. The first was completed between 1913 and 1915, under Bhandarkar, but left incomplete because the priest blocked efforts citing rights to his home and compound walls his ancestors had built over the mound.[22][28][29] The second excavation was completed between 1963 and 1965, under Khare, who had convinced the locals to move their religious practice to a location near a tree close by and relocating the priest's family. The archaeologists for the second excavation had full access to the Besnagar pillar site.[22][28][9]
Third survey in 1913-1915[]
The 1913–15 excavations, though partial, revealed that the modern era Besnagar site had experienced numerous floods that had deposited silt over the last 2,000 years.[29] The partial dig uncovered an extensive rectangular, square and other substructure and many brick foundations aligned to the cardinal axes. More ruined parts, plates and capitals were also found. The relative alignments suggested that the Besnagar pillar was likely a part of a more extensive ancient site.[29][30][4]
Fourth survey in 1963-1965[]
The 1963–65 excavations revealed that the mound under the demolished later era priest home, contained the brick foundation for a sanctum (garbhagriha) and pillared halls (mandalas) of an elliptical temple. Further excavations below the foundation revealed a different foundation of likely a more ancient temple. These ancient temple foundation, layout and structures were similar to those discovered at Chittorgarh (Rajasthan).[28][31] A more comprehensive excavation underneath the pillar and around the pillar led to the discovery that the pillar itself was much deeper, had a metal-stone interface, features Cunningham's early report had missed, and that secondary foundations were added over time to match the new ground level after major floods. Further, many more structures and items were discovered at the site.[28][9] The archaeologists discovered that the Heliodorus pillar itself was one of eight pillars, all aligned along the north-south axis. These discoveries confirmed that the Besnagar Heliodorus pillar was a part of a more extensive ancient temple site.[28][9][31]
Pillar[]
The 1913 excavation revealed that a significant part of the Heliodorus pillar is below the platform. It sits on top of the remains of a more ancient pillar probably damaged by floods.[32] Over time, silt from various floods have deposited and a raised platform was added at some point. The pillar shaft has a base support of two placement stones held with a layer of stone-metal.[32][29] Above this was an untrimmed stone portion of the pillar. Above the untrimmed section is a trimmed octagonal cross-section. The original ground level was about 4.5 centimeter above the junction of the untrimmed and trimmed section.[33] Above the length with octagonal facet is the section of the pillar with sixteen facets. Above the sixteenths section is the thirty-two faceted section, beyond which is the short round pillar section all the way to the top where sat the crowning emblem (now missing).[34][28] The pillar is about 17.7 feet above a square platform (12 feet side), and the platform itself is about 3 feet high above the ground.[25] The currently visible portion of the pillar's octagonal section is about 4 feet 10 inches high. The sixteenths section is fully visible and is 6 feet 2 inches high.[25] The thirty-twos is also fully visible and is about 11.5 inches high, while the round section is 2 feet and 2 inches high. The bell capital is about 1 feet 6 inches deep and 1 feet 8 inches wide. The abacus is a 1 feet 7 inch sided ornate square.[25]
The ornamental bands on the pillar are at the junctions of the octagon-sixteenths and sixteenths-thirty-seconds sections.[34][28] The lower ornamental band consists of half-rosettes, while the upper ornamental band is a festoon with birds (swag with flowers, leaves and hanging vines). Early scholars mistook it as geese (or swan), but a closer examination revealed that they are regular pigeon-like birds, not geese (nor swan).[36][28] The upper festoon is about 6.5 inches long.[25] According to Donald Stadtner, the capitals found at the Heliodorus pillar site are similar, yet different in ways from the Sunga capitals found at Sanchi. The Sanchi discoveries lack the clockwise birds, the makara and the band found in Besnagar. They have elephants and lions, which are absent in Besnagar.[37] According to Julia Shaw, the elephants and lions motif is typically found with Buddhist art of this period. The two styles have differences yet informed the other, states Shaw.[38]
The Heliodorus pillar is neither tapered nor polished like the ancient Ashokan pillars found in India.[29][39] It is also about half the diameter of Ashoka pillars.[40] The Brahmi inscriptions are found on the octagonal surface just below the lower ornamental band of half-rosettes.[41]
The 1963–65 excavations suggest that the site had an elliptical shrine – possibly 4th to 3rd-century BCE – with a brick foundation and likely a wooden superstructure.[42][28][43] This was destroyed by a flood around 200 BCE. New soil was then added and the ground level raised to build a new second temple to Vāsudeva, with a wooden pillar (Garuda dhvaja) in front of the east-facing elliptical shrine.[42][28] This too was destroyed by floods sometime in the 2nd-century BCE.[42] In late 2nd-century BCE, after some ground preparation, yet another Vāsudeva temple was rebuilt, this time with eight stone pillars aligned in the north-south cardinal axis. Only one of these eight pillars have survived: the Heliodorus pillar.[42][28]
Inscriptions[]
There are two inscriptions on the pillar. The inscriptions have been analysed by several authors, such as E. J. Rapson,[44] Sukthankar,[27] Richard Salomon,[5] and Shane Wallace.[4]
The text of the inscriptions is in the Brahmi script of the Sunga period, the language is Central-western epigraphic Prakrit, with a few Sanskritized spellings.[5] The first inscription describes the private religious dedication of Heliodorus (Translations: Richard Salomon):[5]
Line 1. This Garuda-standard of Vāsudeva, the god of gods
Line 2. was constructed here by Heliodora (Heliodoros), the Bhagavata,
Line 3. son of Dion, a man of Takhkhasila (Taxila),
Line 4. the Greek ambassador who came from the Great King
Line 5. Amtalikita (Antialkidas) to King
Line 6. Kasiputra Bhagabhadra, the Savior,
Line 7. prospering in (his) fourteenth regnal year.[45]
The second inscription on the pillar, in the same script, recites a verse from the Hindu epic Mahabharata:[22][26]
Line 1. (These?) three steps to immortality, when correctly followed,
Line 2. lead to heaven: control, generosity, and attention.[45]
The identity of the King Bhagabhadra in the longer inscription is contested. Early scholars proposed that he may have been the 5th ruler of the Sunga dynasty, as described in some Puranic lists.[5] However, later excavations by German archaeologists near Mathura (Sonkh) have shown that the Sunga dynasty may have ended before the Heliodorus pillar was installed.[22] Therefore, it is probable that the Bhagabhadra may have been a local ruler.[22] The virtues in the shorter inscription has been variously translated by different scholars. John Irwin, for example, translates it as "Restraint, Renunciation and Rectitude".[22]
| Translation (English) |
Transliteration (original Brahmi script) |
Inscription (Prakrit in the Brahmi script)[4] |
|---|---|---|
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This Garuda-standard of Vāsudeva, the God of Gods Three immortal precepts (footsteps)... when practiced |
|