Tribes in Ancient India c35.13.1

c35.13.1

The *Milinda-Pañho* refers to the land of the Yonas as the place fit for the attainment of *Nibbāna* (Trenckner ed., p. 327). The *Mahāvastu* speaks of the assembly of the Yonas where anything which was decided was binding on them (Vol. I, p. 171). Hence D. R. Bhandarkar in his *Carmichael Lectures*² observes that there is nothing strange in Pāṇini flourishing in the sixth century B.C. and in his referring also to *Yavanānī*, the writing of the Greeks. When Alexander invaded India he found a large number of autonomous tribes and principalities in the North-Western Frontier Province and the Punjab. Among these we find mention of the Nysaeans forming a small hill-state with a republican constitution. They had Adouphis then as their President and they had a Governing Body of three hundred members. Holdich in discussing the site of Nysa³ shows that the lower spurs and valleys of Koh-i-Mor are where the ancient city of Nysa once stood. According to Bhandarkar,⁴ Nysa was situated between the Kophen and the Indus. In the Fifth Book of Arrian’s work,⁵ we find two relevant passages in this connection. Arrian says, ‘The Nysaeans are not an Indian race, but descended from the men who came into India with Dionysus.’⁶ The deputies of Nysa, who waited upon Alexander, themselves told the Macedonian monarch that their city was founded by Dionysus; for Dionysus, the Greeks believed, had gone conquering across Asia, at the head of his revellers, in the old heroic days.