Heliodorus Pillar, Sanchi

The Heliodorus pillar is a stone column that was erected around 113 BCE in central India in Besnagar (near Vidisha, Madhya Pradesh). The pillar is named after Heliodorus, an ambassador of the Indo-Greek king Antialcidas from Taxila, who made a dedication inscribed in Brahmi script on the pillar, declaring himself to be a devotee of Vāsudeva, the "God of Gods", the Supreme Deity. The Heliodorus pillar, joining earth, space and heaven, is thought to symbolize the "cosmic axis" and express the cosmic totality of the Deity.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.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. The temple and the inscriptions are among the earliest known evidence of Vāsudeva-Krishna devotion and early Vaishnavism in India. The cult of Vāsudeva-Krishna was originally one of several major independent cults, together with the cults of Narayana, Shri and Lakshmi, which later coalesced around the beginning of the Common Era to form Vishnuism, the actual cult of Vishnu having only developed after these initial cults were established. In the inscription of the Heliodorus pillar, Vāsudeva-Krishna was worshipped as Deva deva, the "God of Gods", the Supreme Deity. The erection of the Heliodorus pillar is a manifestation of the Bhagavata worship of the Vrishni heroes, an ancient Indian cult, and was simultaneous with the flourishing of Buddhism in nearby Sanchi.According to Harry Falk, making dedications to foreign gods was a logical practice for the Greeks, in order to appropriate their power: "Venerating Vāsudeva, as did Heliodor in the time of Antialkidas, should not be regarded as a "conversion" to Hinduism, but rather as the result of a search for the most helpful local powers, upholding own traditions in a foreign garb."

Heliodorus Pillar is located in City of Sanchi state of Madhya Pradesh which has other variety of things to explore