History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v2.c24.s1.458

v2.c24.s1.458

This process has gone on for at least two thousand years. The beginnings of it are found in the Śāntiparva chap. 65 where Indra tells the Emperor Māndhātṛ to bring all foreign people like the Yavanas under brahmanical influence. The Besnagar column inscription shows that the Yona (yavana) Heliodora (Heliodorus) son of Diya (Dion) was a bhāgavata (devotee of Vāsudeva). Vide J. R. A. S. for 1909 pp. 1053 and 1087 and J. B. B. R. A. S. vol. 23 p. 104. In the caves at Nasik, Karle and other places many of the donors are said to have been yavanas (vide E. I. vol. VII, pp. 53-54, 55, E. I. vol. VIII, p. 90, E. I. vol. XVIII, p. 325). Several inscriptions state that Indian kings married Hūṇa princesses, e. g. Allaṭa of the Guhila dynasty married a Hūṇa princess named Hariyadevi (I. A. vol. 39 p. 191), king Yaśaḥkarṇadeva of the Kalacuri dynasty is said to have been the son of Karṇadeva and Āvalladevī, a Hūṇa princess. These and similar examples show that persons of foreign descent and their children were absorbed into the Hindu community from time to time. This absorption is illustrated in modern times by the case of *Fanindra Deb v. Rajeshwar* (L. R. 12 I. A. 72) in which it was found that a family in Kooch Behar not originally Hindu had adopted certain Hindu usages and it was held that it had not taken over the practice of adoption. How Hindu customs and incidents persist even after conversion to Islam is strikingly shown by the Khojas and Kutchi Memons of the Bombay Presidency, who though made converts to Islam several centuries ago, were held by the courts in India to have retained the ancient Hindu Law of succession and inheritance.928b