[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [General history and culture](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general) › [The Greeks in Bactria and India](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.tarn-1938) › c12.19 # The Greeks in Bactria and India c12.19 The Greeks in Bactria and India c12.19 - **Language:** English ### [c12.19](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.tarn-1938.c12.19) The first thing is the word Yonaka, used for a Greek; it is used twice of Greeks generally,⁵ and twice of Menander's 500 Yonakas; except for Milinda Part I the word seemingly only occurs once again in India, in inscription 19 from the Nasik cave (p. 257 n. 3).⁶ The ordinary Sanscrit word for a Greek was Yavana¹. This is the Greek 'ἸάFων, and it certainly came to India through Achaemenid Persia, for in the Old Persian of Darius' inscriptions the form used is always Iauna,² which was also the colloquial form.³ The fact that Hebrew made of it Javan (Yawan) and the Hittites Yevanna has led to a suggestion that it came to India not through Persia but through Semitic Babylon;⁴ but this seems impossible, for in the Babylonian version of Darius' inscriptions the form used is always ia-ma-nu or ia-a-ma-nu,⁵ corresponding to a form Yamanim in a document from Ras Shamra,⁶ and this cannot possibly make Yavana. The Prakrit word, used in the third century B.C. in Asoka's inscriptions, is Yona. I have never seen its relation to Yavana discussed, so it is probably unknown; the obvious supposition is that Yona stands to Yavana as 'Ιων to 'ἸάFων (the relationship of the two Greek words is also unknown)⁷ and that it was derived directly from 'Ιων, for no similar Persian word has been cited and the third century is late for a borrowing from Persia. - [Previous: c12.18](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.tarn-1938.c12.18) - [Next: c12.20](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.tarn-1938.c12.20) - [Up: c12](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.tarn-1938.c12) ## Cites (2) - [Milindapañha](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.theravada.sp.khuddaka.milindapanha) — Pāli - [Nasik No. 16](https://indike.org/pramana/inp.epigraphy.deccan.satavahana.nasik-no-16*hultzsch1906) — Prakrit --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.tarn-1938.c12.19](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.tarn-1938.c12.19) · Pramāṇa