The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s4.199

c10.s4.199

In the caves at Nasik, Junnar, and Karli, in the country inland from Bombay, are a number of inscriptions recording religious gifts by Buddhist donors, of which nine are material here:² in these nine, seven of the donors call themselves Yavanas and have Indian names, one calls himself a Yonaka and has an Indian name,³ and the ninth calls himself a Yavana but his name is not given, or has perished.⁴ Archaeological considerations put the buildings, and therefore the inscriptions, at Nasik and Karli in the first century B.C.;⁵ and it will be seen later that there are grounds for dating the important inscription Nasik 19 about 50-30 B.C. (p. 257 n. 3). Most writers known to me have said that these Yavanas were Greeks who had taken Indian names;⁶ but this is as improbable as anything can well be.⁷ Very many cases are known throughout Asia, notably in Palestine and Babylonia, of Asiatics who took Greek names, whether in place of or in addition to their own; but though one reads modern statements (without references) that Greeks took Asiatic names, I have only met with one dubious case, which could be taken either way.¹ And this is common sense; the conqueror does not adopt the nomenclature of the conquered. Possibly some low-class Greek, broken by circumstances, might occasionally ‘go native’, a fact which would leave no record; possibly some religious fanatic here or there might desire to be known by a name drawn from his adopted religion; these things happen to-day, and are part of human nature. But all these Yavanas were men of substance, able to confer large gifts—no doubt wealthy merchants; five give pillars,² one gives two cisterns,³ another a hall-front,⁴ another a refectory for the monastic community;⁵ while the ninth, Indragnidatta, excavates a cave and equips it elaborately as a holy place for the worship of all the Buddhas.⁶ As he does this for the sake of his parents, and as his father bears an Indian name, it would seem that, if a Greek, he had acquired not only an Indian name but an Indian father, which might be difficult. It is hardly worth arguing; there is no real doubt that these Yavanas were Indians, and what we want to know is why they called themselves Greeks.