262 
Rajendralala Mitra— The Yavanas of Sanskrit Writers. [No. 3, 
says it is probably the name of a river, and we must look for it somewhere 
in the neighbourhood of the country of the Yavanas. 
In the Amarakosha, the word occurs as the name of a kind of horse, 
being enumerated along with the horses of Sc} T thia, Bactria, Kandahar, &c. 
Commentators explain it to mean a swift horse \ but this is scarcely likely, 
seeing that all the other terms are specilic and intended to indicate the 
locale of the breeds; the Yavana horse, followed by the Scythian horse, the 
Kandahari horse, the Kamboja horse, the Turki horse, unmistakably 
points to a country; and if so, we must look for that Yavana country 
nearer home than Ionia or Greece, whence no horses were exported. With 
the first vowel lengthened (yavana , the produce of the Yavana country) 
the word is given as a synonym of Turushka (Turkish), and means ‘ gum 
benjamin’ or ‘ olibanum,’ which is a produce of Central Asia, but which 
was never imported from Ionia or Greece. Yavaphala or Jatamansi (Valarea 
jatamansi) , in the same way, is a produce of Central Asia, and not of 
Greece, and its name shews the Yavanas to have been a Central Asiatic race. 
Hemachandra gives yavaneshta, or “ the beloved of the Y r avanas,” for lead, 
which was taken away from India by the Phoenicians and Romans, but never 
by the Greeks—at least there is nothing to show that the Greeks were par¬ 
ticularly fond of it. The same author gives yavanapriya for ‘ black pepper,’ 
and that was an article of commerce with the western nations long before 
the Greeks came to India. According to the Rajanirghanta, yavaneshtd y 
with a long final a, is the name of garlick, and all the Mlechchha races are 
fond of it ; it was not a special favourite of the Greeks. The same work 
gives yavdni or Yavdnikd as the name of Ttichotis ajwan , which is a 
native of Scythia, Bactria, Persia, Turkey, and the southern parts of Europe 
generally, and is not confined to Ionia or Greece, nor is there anything to 
show that the Greeks alone traded in it. 
Again, yavanikd for the outer screen of a tent (i qanat ) is an article 
with which the Hindus must have come into contact in their intercourse 
with the nomades of Central Asia, long before the advent of Alexander in 
India, if they did not bring it thence with them when migrating from Ariya 
to India. 
In Katyayana’s Varttika on Aphorism 175 of the first Section of the 
fourth Book of Pauini, the Yavanas are linked with the Kambojas, showing 
their near relationship. 
There is a passage in the Mahabhashya of Patanjali which also calls for a 
few remarks here. It has often been quoted as a proof in support of the 
theory which would interpret the word Yavana to mean a Greek, and it is a 
remarkable one for many reasons. Professor Goldstucker, in his learned essay 
on Panini, gives the following summary of the passage in question. “ In 
Sutra iii. 2, iii., Panini teaches that the imperfect must be used, when the 
