258 
Rajendralala Mitra— The Yavanas of Sanskrit Writers. [No. 3, 
have produced a miraculous cow out of it. The prayer for cattle is common 
enough in the Rig Veda, and in one place (VII, 181) we have “ seeking to 
milk thee (Indra) like a cow in a rich meadow, Vas'ishtha sent forth his 
prayers to thee.” In several places the rains, or rain-producing clouds, are 
described as cows, and speech is likewise indicated by the same term. The 
type of the miraculous all-bestowing cow is, however, given in full detail in 
two hymns of the Atharva Veda. Both these have been translated by Dr. 
Muir in his Sanskrit Texts* and I shall quote one of them here. “ Prayer 
(brahman) is the chief (thing) ; the Brahman is the lord (adhipati) . Prom 
the Kshattriya who seizes the priest’s cow, and oppresses the Brahman, 
there depart piety, valour, good fortune, force, keenness, vigour, strength, 
speech, energy, prosperity, virtue, prayer (brahman), royalty, kingdom, 
subjects, splendour, renown, lustre, wealth, life, beauty, name, fame, inspira¬ 
tion and expiration, sight, hearing, milk, sap, food, eating, righteousness, 
truth, oblation, sacrifice, offspring, and cattle ; all these things depart from 
the Kshattriya who seizes the priest’s cow. Terrible is the Brahman’s cow, 
filled with deadly poison. In her reside all dreadful things, and all forms 
of death, all cruel things, and all forms of homicide. When seized, she binds 
in the fetters of death the oppressor of priests and despiser of the gods.” 
The subject of the Vis'vamitra episode is the attempt on the part of a Kshat¬ 
triya to rob a Brahman of his cow, and the consequences thereof, and the 
extract above given, shows clearly and most fully in the form of a denuncia¬ 
tion what the author of the Maliabharata and the Puranas have develop- 
ped into a tale. I feel satisfied that few will doubt the accuracy of this inter¬ 
pretation, and seek to engraft on it the Io myth. 
Schlegel, in commenting on the word Yavana in the Vis'vamitra 
legend as given in the Ramayana, makes the following remarks: 
Yavanorum nomen satis indefinite usurpari videtur de populis ultra Per- 
siam versus occidentem sitis. De Bactris, quos V. Cl. Wilso hue advocat, 
dubito. At Arabes iam olim ita appellatos fuisse patet ex nomine tliuris 
hide deducto, yavana , quod Amarasinhas habet Ed. Col. p. 162, d. 30. Post 
Alexandri Magni tempora scriptores Indi et Graecos Yavanos dixere, qui 
mos iis cum Persis fuit communis. Memorabilis sane est similitudo vocabuli 
Indici cum Ionum nomime, cuius antiquissima forma fuit ’Idores, et digammo 
restituto IAFONE^. Nec tamen hoc nomen est vere Homericum : nam unicus 
locus, ubi id legitur, (IL. N. 685) manifesto est interpolatus. Cf. Heynii et 
Kniyhtii annott. ad h. 1. Inde mihi quidem probabile fit, Ionum maiores 
in ipsa Graecia ante migrationem nondum ita dictos fuisse, vocemque esse 
barbarae originis ; colonos autem longo demum tempore postquam Asiae 
* 2nd Edition, Yol. I., pp 285—288. 
