History of India, c. 150 A.D. to 350 A.D.: Naga–Vakataka Imperial Period c15.s1.31

c15.s1.31

reading, was a Kshatriya (i.e., Hindu) chief. The other reading is thus given by the commentator—‘Vindhyaśakti-mūrdhābhi-shikta iti pāṭhe Kshatriya-mukhya ityarthah’. This variant reading did not make Vindhyaśakti a member of ‘the Kailakilā Yava-nas’. The mistake is obvious, being caused by reading the word Yavanāḥ of the next line of the Matsya along with the Kailakilāḥ. It should be noted that it is not a consistent, but only an occasional, reading. The commentator did not find the statement that the Kailakilas were Yavanas in all the manuscripts of the Vishnu Purāṇa. He found it omitted in some, as Mr. Pargiter has found it omitted in his h. Vṣ.¹ It seems that making the Kailakilas into Yavanas was a later emendation by some reviser of the text of Vishnu who consulted the Matsya text. Evidently the original edition did not have Yavanas here, and it is a later addition.