History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v1.c17.4

v1.c17.4

Who were these invaders. The temple archives call them Yavanas and Hunter has no doubt that they were so. He has given a most detailed history of the ancient Yavanas or Bactrian Greeks who had kingdoms in the Panjab and who invaded Ayodhya and Magadha under Menander in the second century B. C. It is not improbable that some of these Yavana adventurers sailed down the Ganges and came by sea to Orissa in course of time. That there were Yavana kingdoms in the central parts of India is proved not only from inscriptions but from the Purāṇas themselves Of the Kailakila or Kainkila Yavanas mentioned in the Purāṇas we shall speak later on. Here it will suffice to note that Yavana adventures, it is not strange, founded a kingdom in Orissa in about 320A.D. and continued to rule down to 474 A. D. These Yavanas were a maritime people and it is supposed that under their guidance the Hindus went to Java about this period. Whatever that may be, these Yavanas appear to be Buddhists like the Kāilakila Yavanas of the Central Provinces. The fact is that foreigners whether in past or present times are always partial to Buddhism; because Hinduism is exclusive and there is no ready admission to foreigners in its fold Sir W. Hunter attributes this tendeney to the higher ethical excellence of Buddhism. But it seems that there was nothing to choose between Hinduism and Buddhism of the fifth century A.D. so far as higher doctrines were concerned and superstition was as rempant in Buddhism as in Hinduism at that time. But Buddhism was a proselytizing religion while Hinduism was not and hence Yavanas and Sakas and others turned Buddhists sooner than Hindus. But it must be remembered that caste in the fifth century A.D. was as strong among Buddhists as among the Hindus in spite of the fact that Buddhism started with the denial of caste in the beginning. The sentiment of caste is buried deep down the Indian heart and we see caste at the present day assert itself even among the Christian converts of the south. Under the influence of caste a new people though admitted to Buddhism or even to Hinduism lived as a separate caste bound by interdiction of marriage with others among the hundred and one castes that already existed