2G4 
Rajendralala Mitra— The Yavanas of Sanskrit Writers. . [No. 3, 
so many different occasions, that it is impossible to say with any approach to 
certainty that by the term Yavana, Patanjali meant the Greeks and no other. 
Gol dstiicker reconciles this by saying: “ Yet the word { Yavana carries with 
it another correction of this uncertainty. According to the researches of Pro¬ 
fessor Lassen, it is impossible to doubt that within this period , viz. between 
143 before, and GO after Christ, this word Yavana can only apply to the 
'Graeco-Indian kings, nine of whom reigned from 160 to 85 B. C. And 
if we examine the exploits of these kings, we find that there is but one of 
whom it can be assumed that he, in his conquests of Indian territory, came 
as far as Ayodhya. It is Menandros , of whom so early a writer as Strabo 
reports that he extended his conquests as far as the Jamuna, river, and of 
whom one coin has actually been found at Mathura. He reigned, according 
to Lassen’s researches, more than twenty years, from about 141 B. C.” # 
The argument here, however, is founded on a petitio principii —that 
“ it is impossible to doubt that between 143 before and 60 after Christ, this 
word Yavana can only imply the Gneco-Indian kings.” Lassen himself has 
admitted that within the period in question, the Grceeo-Bactrians were like¬ 
wise called Yavanas, and generally he says: “ I believe I may look upon the 
name of yavana as an old general term. The Indians use this name for 
the remotest nations of the West ; but in different periods, according to the 
degree of knowledge, and the extent of the commerce of the Indians, the 
term was applied, both by Indians and Iranians, to various peoples in the 
West. Its oldest signification is pi’obably Arabia, because Arabia is 
called Yavana. The next meaning is supplied by the term yavandni , which 
signifies the writing of the Yavanas, and must be referred to Aryan writing, 
which was known to the Indians, and was used before the time of As'oka in 
Gandhara, west of the Indus, because As'oka had one of his inscriptions cut 
in that system of writing.”! Elsewhere he says, “ The old Indians used the 
name of Yavana as a general term for all the nations of the West. It sig¬ 
nified first the Arabians, and, probably at the same time, the Phoenicians, be¬ 
cause the latter came most frequently as merchants from the West to 
India.”{ 
As regards Menandros,§ it is a mere assumption to say that because 
Strabo states his conquests had extended as far as the Yamuna, it must have 
extended three hundred miles beyond that river to the middle of Audh. 
Put in other words, the statement would stand thus: Strabo was wrong 
when he said the conquest of Menandros extended as far as the Yamuna, 
and therefore his erroneous statement may be taken as a proof of the conquest 
* Opus cit., p. 234. f Indisclie Altertlmmskunde, p. 729. J Ibid., p. 861. 
§ Mr. D’Alwis is of opinion that the Malinda of the Pali Annals is perhaps Menan¬ 
der. Pali Grammar, p. XLII, 
