The Greeks in Bactria and India c17.14

c17.14

There is also, I apprehend, an element of conjecture in the decipherment of the sentence which states what the Yavanaraja did, as the translations of Jayaswal and Konow (I have not found any other) differ considerably. Konow’s version⁴ in 1923 was: ‘And through the uproar occasioned by the action [i.e. incidents of Khāravela’s invasion of Magadha] the Yavana king Demetrius went off to Mathurā in order to relieve his generals who were in trouble.’ Jayaswal’s version in 1927⁵ was: ‘On account of the report (uproar) occasioned by the acts of valour [i.e. the capture of a fortress etc. previously mentioned] the Greek king Demet(rios) drawing in his army and transport retreated to abandon Mathurā.’ Then in 1928 Jayaswal put forward a totally different view:⁶ what the inscription refers to, he said, is the Greek king (he does not say Demetrius) being beaten off from Pāṭaliputra when he attacked it and retreating to Mathurā. He had evidently discarded the abandonment of Mathurā (which is wise), and on this theory Khāravela does not come into the business at all.