The Greeks in Bactria and India c12.58

c12.58

The next thing is the names of those four of Menander’s Yonakas who play a part in the introduction or scene-setting to Part I of the Pali Milinda, Devamantiya, Anantakāya, Mankura, Sabbadinna; what is material is not so much the names, whether real or fictitious, as the nationalities. That the first two names are Demetrius and Antiochus has never been doubted, though they have seemingly been ‘adjusted’ to make some sort of sense in Pali.¹ It seems equally certain that the third name is Pakor (Pacorus).² Pacorus was a common Parthian name, occurring in India as Pacores, but Mankura can hardly have been a Parthian and must have been some other north Iranian, Bactrian or Sogdian; looking at the doubts whether the first Arsaces was a Parthian (Parnian) or a Bactrian the difference cannot have been great, and I understand that the two languages, Pahlavi and Sogdian, are closely connected, and that Sogdian borrows from Pahlavi.³