The Mauryan Polity c6.s2.t1.4

c6.s2.t1.4

The Āndhras are known to the *Aitareya Brāhmaṇa* (VII. 18) as also the Pulindas and the Bhojas. If the Bhojas are to be identified as the ancestors of the Mahābhojas of the later period, and the Rāṣṭrikas with the Mahāraṭhis of the Śātavāhana period,¹ they must have occupied respectively the territory covered by the modern Berar and the Mahārāṣṭra. The Pulindas are one among the south Indian tribes according to the *Vāyu*² and *Matsya Purāṇas*.³ Apparently their capital city was somewhere near the modern Bhilsa.⁴ Among the vassal states of the north-west figure those of the Yonas, Kambojas, and the Gāndhāras. The precise habitat of the Yonas is uncertain and deserves further investigation. The term *yona* occurs in two different places in the XIII Rock Edict. *Yona* is Prakrit for Sanskrit *yavana*.⁵ The first is a reference to the feudatory Yona state and the other to the Hellenic kingdoms⁶ with whom Aśoka had international relations. The feudatory Yona state may probably refer to the hilly tracts on the lower spurs of the three-peaked Koh-i-Mor where Alexander found "descendants of the western people who had come into those parts with their god Dionysus"⁷ and who helped Alexander in his battle in the plains of the Punjab.