in Hindu mythology, the patronymic of Krishna (Kṛṣṇa), who, according to one tradition, was a son of Vāsudeva. The worshipers of Vāsudeva, or Krishna, formed one of the earliest theistic devotional movements within Hinduism. When they merged with other groups, namely the Bhāgavata, they represented the beginnings of modern Vaiṣṇavism (Vaishnavism), or worship of Lord Vishnu. A significant 2nd-century-BC inscription at Besnagar, near Vidisha (Bhīlsa), Madhya Pradesh, refers to a column topped by a figure of Garuḍa (the emblem or mount of Lord Vishnu), erected in honour of Vāsudeva by the Indo-Greek ambassador Heliodorus, who termed himself a “Bhāgavata.” Though, in the earliest parts of the great Indian epic the Mahābhārata, the divinity of Krishna appears to be still open to doubt, by the time of the writing of the Bhagavadgītā (1st–2nd century AD), Vāsudeva-Krishna was clearly identified with the Vedic god Vishnu.