252 Bajendralala Mitra —The Yavanas of Sanskrit Writers. [No. 3, 
coast of Asia Minor and the islands near it to such an extent as to consti¬ 
tute a distinct nationality. Dr. Smith admits that “ it can hardly be 
imagined that the early Hebrews themselves had any actual acquaintance 
with the Greeks,” and the inscription of Sargon to which reference has been 
made above, says that in 708 B. C. “the seven kings of the Yalta tribes of 
the country of Yavnan (or Yunan ), who dwelt in an island in the midst of 
the Western sea, at the distance of seven days from the coast, and the name 
of whose country had never been heard by my ancestors, the kings of Assyria 
and Chaldaea, from the remotest times, &c.” # If Yavnan had never been 
heard of before 708 B. C. in Assyria and Cliahhea, it is not to be supposed 
that it was better known to the Hebrews in the time of Moses at least 
seven centuries before that time. 
In later Greek there is doubtless ample evidence to show that Ionia 
formed a part of the Greek empire ; but it is worthy of note that in the 
oldest passages the term Ionians to imply Greeks is put in the mouths of 
Persians : thus, in iEschylus, Atossa, when stating that her son had gone to 
ravage the land of the Ionians, says, 
a ovnep 7rats e/xo? araAas oTparov 
’laoFcov yrjv otyerat TvepaaL 0e \cov (180.) 
But the lady here evidently confounded the Ionians of Asia Minor 
with the Spartans. In another passage in the Persians we have — 
Sea S’ ’Iaovoov yepas (565.) 
Paley says that the Athenians are meant by the laovwv. 
In the Acharnians of Aristophanes, the pseudo-Persian ambassador 
abuses an Athenian in bad Greek, i. e. Persian Greek, thus : 
Ov \rj\J/L y pvero yawo7rpooKT’ ’laova v. 
In explanation of this, a commentator, according to Lassen, says that 
the Barbarians call all Greeks ’Idoves. 
On the whole, these instances from the ancient Egyptian, Hebrew, 
Assyrian, and Greek authors clearly show that Ionia or Javan has not en¬ 
joyed a persistent individuality of meaning at all times ; that originally it 
meant foreigners ; then Eurasians or mixed tribes of Europeans and Asiatics ; 
then Asiatic Greeks; and lastly Greeks generally, whether Asiatic or Euro¬ 
pean. Under these circumstances, it is not to be supposed that the Sanskrit 
Yavana, even if we accept it to be originally the same with the Hebrew 
Javan and the Persian and Arabic Yunan, should possess a greater fixity of 
sense than did its prototype. On the contrary, the most probable conclu¬ 
sion would be, that it was more loosely used in India than in Persia, Arabia, 
and Syria. Whether such was really the case or not, will be evident from 
the remarks which follow. 
# Ruwlinson’s Herodotus, I., p. 7. 
