The Greeks in Bactria and India c12.29

c12.29

Yonaka also did not come through Achaemenid Persia,⁸ as it corresponds to nothing in classical Greek; it is not 'Ιωνικός (which incidentally does not mean Ionian), but implies a form 'Ιωνακός, unknown to classical Greek; and the appearance of the word is far too late for a borrowing from Persia, for no one would put Part I of the Pali Milinda earlier than the late second century B.C., and the Nasik cave inscription is probably not earlier than the refer to Greeks, and neither Lévi in *Quid de Graecis* nor Weber in *Berlin SB* 1890 pp. 907 *sqq.*, who give every mention of Yavanas they can find, gives any other instance of Yonaka. I thought I had discovered another in B. C. Law, *Some Kshatriya tribes of ancient India* 1923 p. 250, who among his ancient sources cites a passage containing the word Yonaka from a work called *Sāsanavamsa*; but I found that this work was written in Burma in 1861 (Winternitz II p. 176)—not the only time in this period that a modern work has been quoted by somebody as ancient authority.