India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c13.17

c13.17

It was not yet the resounding epoch of Magadhan imperialism. Ajātaśatru as a Magadhan king, had annexed only the kingdoms of Kāśi and Kosala. It was only a passing phase. The last two rulers of this dynasty, Nandivardhana and Mahānandin, did not make any annexations. The Purāṇas state that it was only Mahāpadma Nanda who annexed the leading Kshatriya states of the time, *viz.* the Aikshvākus of Kosala, Pañchālas, Kāśis, Haihayas, Kaliṅgas, Aśmakas, Kurus, Maithilas, Śūrasenas and Vītihotras, and made himself the sole sovereign (*ekrāṭ*) or emperor. Therefore the period, when Pāṇini spoke of the kingdoms of Kuru, Kosala, Magadha, Kaliṅga, Avanti and Aśmaka, specifically as so many small monarchical states must have preceded the time of Mahāpadma Nanda, before about 400 B.C. Thus the political data of the *Ashṭādhyāyī* must relate to the epoch circa 450 to 400 B.C. *REFERENCE TO YAVANĀNĪ*—Pāṇini's reference to Yavana and Yavanānī writing, possesses distinct value for his date. The term *Yauna* (=Skt. *Yavana*) for Ionia and the Ionian Greeks is first used in the inscriptions of Darius I (516 B.C.). It must have been after this that the term *Yavana* came into circulation in parts of India which also formed part of the Achaemenian empire. It would not be right to suppose (as Benfey, Burnell, Weber and Wackernagel have done) that the Macedonian Greeks who first came into India with Alexander about two centuries later first became known as Yavanas. In fact the Yavanas had been known much before Alexander who already found in the Kabul valley a colony of Nysian Greeks. In the Old-Persian Inscriptions of Darius (521-485 B.C.) we first find the term *Yauna* denoting Ionia and an Ionian, and *Yaunā*, Ionians, corresponding to Sanskrit *Yavanaḥ* and *Yavanāḥ* (Sukumar Sen, *Old Persian Inscriptions*, p. 223). Both Ionia and Gandhāra, the home of Pāṇini, formed part of the empire of Darius and also continued under the reign of Xerxes, who recruited to his army a contingent of Indians from Gandhāra in his expedition against Greece about the year 479 B.C. Thus was furnished a firsthand opportunity for the Indians to become acquainted with the Greeks even before Alexander. As Prof. Keith has observed: 'If it is borne in mind that Pāṇini was a native of Gandhāra according to Hiuen Tsiang, a view confirmed by the references in his grammar, it will not seem far-fetched to consider that it was most probably from the older tradition that the name Yavanānī was derived' (*Aitareya Āraṇyaka*, p. 23). The word *lipi* borrowed from the Achaemenian *dipi* meaning 'edict' is conspicuous by absence in the Buddhist canonical works and seems to have been borrowed from Achaemenian Iran. It may further be assumed that the *Yavanānī lipi* was known only in Gandhāra and the north-west at that time (*ante*, p. 312).