Vidisha

From Free net encyclopedia

Current revision

Vidisha or Besnagar is a city in Madhya Pradesh state of central India. It is the administrative headquarters of Vidisha District.

The town is situated east of the Betwa River, in the fork of the Betwa and Bes rivers, 10 km from Sanchi. The town of Besnagar, 3 km from present-day Vidisha on the west side of the river, became an important trade center in the sixth and fifth centuries BCE, under the Sungas, Nagas, Satavahanas, and Guptas, and was mentioned in the Pali scriptures. The Emperor Ashoka was the governor of Vidisha and it finds mention in Kalidasa's immortal Meghdoot. Besnagar was abandoned in the sixth century, it came into prominance again as Bhilsa during the medieval period. Vidisha was established in the ninth century by Muslims. The Bija Mandal mosque in Vidisha was constructed after demolishing the Vijayamandir Hindu temple during the time of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. It thus, passed on to the Malwa Sultans, the Mugals and the Scindias.

The ruins of a Brahmanical shrine at Vidisha dedicated to Vishnu reveal that the foundation bricks were cemented together with lime mortar, the first known example of the use of cement in India. The ruins are of period prior to 2nd century BC.

Close to the ruins are the remains of votive pillars with palm-leaf capitals; the only one that still stands is the Heliodorus pillar, also known as Khamba Baba. A monolithic free-standing column, the pillar bears an inscription which states that it was Garuda Pillar, raised in honour of Vasudeva by Heliodorous, a rsident of Taxila, who had been sent to the court of Bhagabhadra as an envoy of Indo-Bactrian monarch, Antialkidas. This inscription is a valuable historical record, revealing both the relations that existed between the region and the Greek kingdoms of the Punjab, and the remarkable fact that a Greek had become a follower of Hindu god Vishnu. The inclusion of the name of Antialkidas dates the erection of the pillar to approximately 140 BC

sv:Vidisha