258 



JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). 



[Vol. X. 



described by Gibbon) " adopt the language, name, and origin 

 of Arabs, that this very name of Yonnu or Chonahar is 

 evidence of the origin of the Moors from Arabia," because 

 Arabia in Sanskrit is Yavana, in Pali Yonna, and in Tamil 

 Chonaham or Sonaham. 



The descent of Yonna from Yavana must be conceded on 

 the analogy of lona, Pali for salt, being derived from the 

 Sanskrit lavana ; but it may be contended that Chonahar 

 with a long o cannot be traced as clearly from the Sanskrit. 

 A more direct derivation, it has been pointed out to me by 

 the Rev. Father Corbet, is from the Arabic shuna, " a ship 

 of war," and shuna could easily have become shona through 

 the Hindustani, which often tends to change the long u into o. 

 If this be so, Chonahar (in which har would represent the 

 Tamil plural form) would mean warlike people. Father 

 Beschi, in his Tamil Dictionary, says that the name is a 

 corruption of " Chola-nahara people." Mr. 0. Brito 1 thinks 

 it is derived from sunni, as the bulk of the Moors are 

 Sunnis of the Shaf a'i sect. 



But even if we accept the position that Chonahar is derived 

 from Yavana, it does not at all follow that the Moors are Arabs, 

 for the long and shifting history of the Yavanas in India, 

 which is now well known, points to a different conclusion. 

 They are mentioned in the Mahd Bhdrata with the Sakas 

 (Scythians), Pahlavas (Persians), Kambojas, &c, to denote 

 warlike races outside the limits of India, and differing from the 

 Indians in religious faith and customs. The term Yavana? 

 having been identified with Ionia, Dr. Hunter has shown in 

 his delightful work on Orissa 3 how the Ionians " at once the 

 most Asiatic and the most mobile of the Greek colonists in 

 Asia Minor," came to be confounded by the Persians as early 

 as B.C. 650, and through them by the Indians, with the 



1 Yalpdna Vaipava Mdlai, Appendix, p. 82. 



2 Dr. Rajendra Lai Mitra identifies yavana with Sans, yuvan, Lat. 

 invents, as indicating the " youthful " or new race of Asiatic Greeks. See 

 Indo- Aryans, vol. II., p. 177. 3 Vol. I. 



