________________
394 POLITICAL HISTORY OF ANCIENT INDIA
of the Puranas. This theory has to be given up in view of the discovery of another Besnagar Garuda Pillar Inscription (of the twelfth year after the installation of Mahārāja Bhāgavata) which proves that there was at Vidiśā a king named Bhāgavata apart from king Käsiputra Bhagabhadra. In the absence of clear evidence connecting "Udaka" with Vidiśa it cannot be confidently asserted that he belonged to the house of Agnimitra and Bhāgavata. The view of Marshall seems to be more probable. 1
It appears that the successors of Agnimitra at Vidiśā cultivated friendly relations with the Greek sovereigns of the Western Panjab. The policy of the Bactrian Greeks in this respect resembled that of their Seleukidan predecessors. Seleukos, we know, first tried to conquer the Magadha Empire, but, frustrated in his attempts, thought it prudent to make friends with the Mauryas. The Bactrians, too, after the reverses they sustained at the hands of Pushyamitra's general, and weakened moreover by internal dissensions, apparently gave up, for a time at least, their hostile attitude towards the imperial power in the Ganges valley. We learn from the Besnagar Inscription of the reign of Bhagabhadra that Heliodora (Heliodoros), the son of Diya (Dion), a native of Taxila, ambassador from Mahārāja Amtalikita (Antialkidas) to Rajan Kasiputra Bhagabhadra the Saviour (Trātāra) who was prospering in the fourteenth year of his reign. The ambassador, though a Greek, professed the Bhāgavata religion and set up a Garudadhvaja in honour of Vasudeva (Krishna), the god of gods.
came as an
1 Dr. Barua points out (IHQ, 1930, 23) that "in the absence of the word rajno preceding Udakasa, it is difficult to say at once whether Udaka is the personal name of a king or the local name of the place where the cave was excavated."
