Tribes in Ancient India c35.13.5

c35.13.5

And as the original owls of Athens have been assigned to *circa* 594-560 B.C., a Greek colony, it is possible to infer, may have been established near India about 550 B.C.’ Ray Chaudhuri³ also notes that the exact situation of the Yona territory has not yet been determined. In the *Mahāvaṃsa* (XII) we find that the Thera Mahārakkhita was sent to the country of the Yonas. This work also refers to its chief city, Alasanda, which Geiger identifies with the town of Alexandria founded by the Macedonian conqueror near Kabul.⁴ Not only the Yonas are mentioned in the inscriptions of Aśoka, we also find a Yavana official or a vassal Yavanarāja called Tushāspha ruling as governor of Surāṣṭra with his capital at Girinagara (Girnar) during the days of Aśoka, as we learn from the Junāgadh Rock Inscription of Mahākshatrapa Rudradāman. Vincent Smith argues that the form of the name shows that the Yavanarāja must have been a Persian. But Ray Chaudhuri contends that if Greeks and other foreigners adopted Hindu names there is no wonder that some of them assumed Iranic appellations. There is, then, no good ground for assuming that Tushāspha was not a Greek, but a Persian. After the death of Aśoka, a Yavana army crossed the Hindu Kush, which was the northern frontier of Aśokan empire on the ruins of which an Indo-Greek kingdom arose.