Historical Geography of Ancient India c6.742

c6.742

Yavana Country.—The Yonas or Yavanas were the Greeks on the north-western frontier. They were the most esteemed of the foreigners, but all the Yavanas were regarded as sprung from Śūdra females and Kṣatriya males.³ The Rāmāyaṇa (I, 54, 21) refers to the struggle of the Hindus with mixed hordes of Śakas and Yavanas (cf. Śakānyavanamíśritān). In the Kiṣkindhyākāṇḍa (IV. 43, 11-12) Sugrīva places the country of the Yavanas and the cities of the Śakas between the countries of the Kurus and the Madras and the Himalayas. Pāṇini mentions it in his Aṣṭādhyāyī (4. 1. 175). The Bṛhatsaṃhitā of Varāhamihira also mentions it (XIV, 18) as inhabited by the Mleccha people (Mlecchā hi Yavanā). The existence of a Yona or Yavana state during the days of Gautama Buddha and Assalāyana is evident from the Majjhima Nikāya (II, 149). The Milindapañha⁴ refers to the land of the Yonas as the place fit for the attainment of Nirvāṇa. The Mahāvastu (Vol. I, p. 171) speaks of the assembly of the Yonas where anything which was decided was binding on them. Dr. D. R. Bhandarkar (Carmichael Lectures, 1921, p. 29) observes that there is nothing strange in Pāṇini flourishing in the 6th century B.C. and in his referring to Yavanānī, the writing of the Greeks. Pāṇini does not of course mean by Yavanānī any writing but only a feminine form of Yavana. Kātyāyana distinguishes between Yavanānī and Yavanī, restricting the use of the first to some form of Greek writing. It is difficult to determine the exact situation of the Yavana country (Bhandarkar, Carmichael Lectures, 1921, p. 26; Ray Chaudhuri, Political History of Ancient India, 4th Ed., p. 253). The existence of a pre-Alexandrian Greek (better Ionian) colony may be inferred from the evidence of the coins similar to those of the earliest type of Athens which are known to have been collected from the North-Western Frontiers of India (*Numismatic Chronicle*, XX, 191; *J.R.A.S.*, 1895, 874). The Yavanas are classed with other peoples of Northern India (*Uttarāpatha*) like the Kāmbojas, Gandhāras, Kirātas and Barbaras (*cf. Mahābhārata*, XII, 207, 43). They are mentioned also in the *Bhāgavatapurāṇa* (II. 4, 18; 7, 34; IV. 72, 23; IX. 8, 5; 20, 30). They are referred to in Aśoka’s Rock Edict V, and in the Nāgārjunikoṇḍa Inscriptions of Virapuruṣadatta. In *R.E.* V and XIII, the Yonas are mentioned along with the Kāmbojas (*Inscriptions of Aśoka* by Bhandarkar and Majumdar, 53-54). In the Nasik cave inscription of Vāsiṣṭhiputra Puḷumāyi, Gautamīputra Śātakarṇi is extolled as the destroyer of the Śakas, Yavanas and Pahlavas (Parthians) and as the Sātavāhana king, who had exterminated the Kṣaharāta dynasty (B. C. Law, *Ujjayinī in Ancient India*, p. 18). The Yavana country is the same as Ionia of the Naqsh-i-Rustum Inscription of Darius. Not only the Yonas are mentioned in the Inscriptions of Aśoka, but also a Yavana official or a vassal Yavanarājā named Tuṣāspha ruled as governor of Surāṣṭra (Kāthiāwād) with his capital at Girinagara (Girnar) during the reign of Aśoka, as it is evident from the Junāgaḍh Rock Inscription of Mahākṣatrapa Rudradāman (about 150 A.D.). For further details, vide O. Stein, *Yavanas in Early Indian Inscriptions* in *I.C.*, Vol. I, pp. 343ff.; B. C. Law, *Indological Studies*, Pt. I, 5ff. Bhandarkar points out that it is impossible to identify the Yonas of *R.E.* XIII with the Greeks of Bactria, because the same edict was promulgated when Antiochus Theos, king of Syria, was alive. He holds the view that in all likelihood the Yavanas of *R.E.* XIII must have come and settled in large numbers in some outlying provinces of India long before Alexander (*Carmichael Lectures*, 1921, 27, 28ff.). Such a view is also supported by numismatic evidence.