Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c11.s32.1

c11.s32.1

In the inscriptions we find the names of a number of tribes, and not all of them can be identified with certainty. There is also some room for doubt about their political relation to the empire. Rock Edict V (J) mentions the Yonas, Kambojas, Gāndhāras, Raṭhikas, Peṭenikas and other Western borderers, and says that all the religious sects among these tribes were looked after by the new officials of the empire, the dharmamahāmātras. Rock Edict XIII(R) speaks of the tribes ‘here in the king's territory’ (iha rājavishye), viz., ‘the Yonas and Kambojas, the Nābhakas and Nābhapaṅktis (Nābhiti-Shab.), the Bhojas and Piṭinikas, the Andhras and Pārindas’. Clearly the Yonas and Kāmbojas of the lists are identical, and the ‘western borderers’ must be taken to have lived within the empire, ‘in the king's territory.’¹ The Yonas in this period obviously means Greeks, and they seem to have formed a small state ruled over by Greek princes in the north-west frontier². The Kāmbojas are to be located in the region of the Pāmirs, to the north of Kashmir³.