The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s7.234

c10.s7.234

If we had enough Greek names from India, something might perhaps be learnt in this connection from the nomenclature; but only thirteen are known¹ beside the twenty-seven names of monarchs, omitting those kings who came from Bactria. However, even these scanty names do show one phenomenon which attracts attention and may be noticed for what it is worth. Among the royal names are four compounded with the names of Greek gods,² few enough, perhaps; but among the names of commoners there is only one, Heliodorus, and that is uncertain, for the Helios may well be Sūrya. Four of the commoners are, naturally enough, named after kings, but three of the others bear the same name, Theodorus; and if the late kings Theophilus and Theodamas be added, no less than five names in our scanty list, all later than 100 B.C., are compounded with the indeterminate Theos.³ That may mean that the Greek father, while willing to be pious, was not going to specify what god was the object of his piety; he was not clinging to the gods of Greece, but was ready to come under other influences. It would seem that the Greek gods in India, though they remained as official coin-types or material for artists, had little enough to do with the religion of the people, at any rate in the first century B.C. Menander’s adoption of the purely Greek Athena may have helped her to keep some hold, as she did at Seleuceia (p. 68), though only one slight indication remains (p. 334 n. 2); but it cannot be said how far Heracles and Dionysus were merely Krishna and Siva, and certainly Zeus was almost always the elephant-god of Kapisa.