Our next evidence is an inscription found not long ago on the base of a stone column at Besnagar near Bhilsa, in the south of Gwalior State,[24] and must have been engraved soon after 200 B.C. It reads as follows: "This Garuḍa-column of Vāsudēva the god of gods was erected here by Heliodorus, a worshipper of the Lord [_bhāgavata_], the son of Diya [Greek _Dion_] and an inhabitant of Taxila, who came as ambassador of the Greeks from the Great King Aṃtalikita [Greek _Antialcidas_] to King Kāśīputra Bhāgabhadra the Saviour, who was flourishing in the fourteenth year of his reign"; and below this are two lines in some kind of verse, which announce that "three immortal steps ... when practised lead to heaven--self-control, charity, and diligence." Here, then, in the centre of a thriving kingdom probably forming part of the Śuṅga empire, Vāsudēva is worshipped not as a minor hero or teacher, but as the god of gods, _dēva-dēva_; and he is worshipped by the Greek Heliodorus, visiting the place as an ambassador from Antialcidas, a Hellenic king of the lineage of Eucratides, who was reigning in the North-West of India. Doubtless the act of Heliodorus was a diplomatic courtesy, in order to please King Kāśīputra Bhāgabhadra. But observe the nature of his act. He caused to be erected a Garuḍa-column, that is, a pillar engraved with the figure of Garuḍa, the sacred bird of Vishṇu; and he added a verse about "three immortal steps" (_trini amutapadāni_), as leading to heaven, which sounds suspiciously like an attempt to moralise the old mythical feature of the three Steps of Vishṇu. Plainly Vāsudēva had now risen in this part of the country from being the teacher of a church of Vishṇu-Nārāyaṇa to the rank of its chief god, with which he had become fully identified. [Footnote 24: See Rapson, _Ancient India_, p. 156 ff., _Cambridge Hist. India_, i, pp. 521, 558, 625, H. Ray Chaudhuri, _Materials for the Study of the Early History of the Vaishnava Sect_, p. 59, and Ramaprasad Chanda, _Archæology and Vaishnava Tradition_ in _Memoirs of the Archæological Survey of India_, No. 5, p. 151 ff., etc.] Another inscription, a few years later in date, has been found in Besnagar. It is a mere fragment, but it supplements the other; for it states that a certain _bhāgavata_, or "worshipper of the Lord," named Gōtama-puta (Gautama-putra in Sanskrit) erected a Garuḍa-column for the Lord's temple in the twelfth year from the coronation of King Bhāgavata. This king is perhaps the same as the person of that name who appears in some genealogical lists as the last but one of the Śuṅga Kings.[25] [Footnote 25: See R. Chanda, _ut supra_, p. 152 f.]