try from being the teacher of a church of
Vishnu-Narayana 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, _Archaeology and Vaishnava Tradition_ in _Memoirs of
the Archaeological 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 _bhagavata_, or "worshipper of the Lord," named
Gotama-puta (Gautama-putra in Sanskrit) erected a Garuda-column for
the Lord's temple in the twelfth year from the coronation of King
Bhagavata. 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
Sunga Kings.[25]

[Footnote 25: See R. Chanda, _ut supra_, p. 152 f.]

Next in date is an inscription on a stone slab found at Ghasundi,
about four miles north-east of Nagari, in Udaipur State. It was
engraved about 150 B.C., and records that a certain _bhagavata_, or
"worshipper of the Lord," named Gajayana, son of Parasari, caused to
be erected in the Narayana-vata, or park of Narayana, a stone chapel
for the worship of the Lords Samkarshana and Vasudeva.[26] Here their
worship is associated with that of Narayana.

[Footnote 26: It is noteworthy that Samkarshana is here mentioned
first, as is also the case in the Nanaghat inscription of about 100
B.C., which mentions them as descendants of the Moon in a list of
various deities. This order may possibly be due to the fact that in
ancient legend Samkarshana, or Bala-bhadra, is the elder brother of
Krishna Vasudeva, and it does not entitle us to draw the inference
that he ever received equal honour with Vasudeva. Special devotees of
Samkarshana are mentioned in the Kautiliya, the famous treatise on
polity ascribed to Chanakya, the minister of Chandra-gupta Maurya, who
came to the throne about 320 B.C. (Engl. transl. 1st edn., p. 485). I
suspect that in its present form the Kautiliya is considerably later
than 320 B.C.; but in any case the existence of special votaries of
Samkarshana is no proof that he ever ranked as equal to Vasudeva, just
as the presence of special worshippers of Arjuna is no proof that
Arjuna was ever considered a peer of