<< Our Photo Pages >> Heliodorus pillar - Ancient Temple in India
Submitted by motist on Monday, 29 January 2007 Page Views: 9208
Multi-periodSite Name: Heliodorus pillarCountry: India Type: Ancient Temple
Nearest Town: Vidisha
Latitude: 23.523364N Longitude: 77.805214E
Condition:
5 | Perfect |
4 | Almost Perfect |
3 | Reasonable but with some damage |
2 | Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site |
1 | Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks |
0 | No data. |
-1 | Completely destroyed |
5 | Superb |
4 | Good |
3 | Ordinary |
2 | Not Good |
1 | Awful |
0 | No data. |
5 | Can be driven to, probably with disabled access |
4 | Short walk on a footpath |
3 | Requiring a bit more of a walk |
2 | A long walk |
1 | In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find |
0 | No data. |
5 | co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates |
4 | co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map |
3 | co-ordinates scaled from a bad map |
2 | co-ordinates of the nearest village |
1 | co-ordinates of the nearest town |
0 | no data |
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Ancient Temple in Vidisha, Madhya Pradesh, India
The Heliodorus pillar is a stone column that was erected around 110 BCE in central India in Vidisha near modern Besnagar, by Heliodorus, a Greek ambassador of the Indo-Greek king Antialcidas to the court of the Sunga king Bhagabhadra. The site is located only 5 miles from the Buddhist stupa of Sanchi. The pillar was surmounted by a sculpture of Garuda and was apparently dedicated by Heliodorus to the god Vasudeva in front of the temple of Vasudeva. Antialcidas was an Indo-Greek king, who reigned from his capital at Taxila from around 115 to 95 BCE. Antialcidas is known from an inscription left on a pillar (the Heliodorus pillar) erected by his ambassador Heliodorus at the court of the Sunga king Bhagabhadra at Vidisha. The inscriptions says: "This Garuda-standard was made by order of the Bhagavata _.Heliodoros, the son of Dion, a man of Taxila, a Greek ambassador from King Antialkidas, to King Bhagabhadra, the son of the Princess from Benares, the saviour, whil The Heliodorus pillar seems to indicate some level of reconciliation between the faith of the Buddha which tended to be supported by the Indo-Greeks, and the Hinduist faith of the Sunga (who before had persecuted Buddhism from the time of Pusyamitra Sunga), through their incorporation of the Buddha within the Bhagavatam pantheon. This reconcialiation was symbolized by a high-ranking Indo-Greek ambassador devoting a monument to the syncretic faith of the Sunga More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliodorus_pillar
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