1874.] Rajendralala Mitra —The Yavanas of Sanskrit Writers. 
271 
the individual ; or it may be that he used a generic term in the same way 
in which the classical writers of Greece and Rome used to employ the term 
il barbarian,” or the Chinese now do the term “ outside barbarian.” Yavana 
has been so used in this country from a long time, and its definition shows 
that it may be so employed with great propriety. In the present day, when 
the Hindus have to indicate any particular nationality, they use their proper 
names ; thus they have Ingrej for the English, Farcisi # for the French, 
Fortukes for the Portuguese, Dincimdr for the Danes, Olanddj for the 
Dutch (Hollanders), Ellemar for the Germans (from the French ‘Allemands’), 
&c.; but when they speak of them generally, they call them Yavans or Mlech- 
chlias, and we have no reason to doubt that this happened in the time of 
As oka, and also long before his time. 
Again, there is a strong tendency in specific names gradually to expand 
according as the circle of knowledge of the persons using them widens, and 
to become generic. This is quite as true of the common terms of a language as 
of proper names ; but to confine my attention for the present to the latter, I 
find the people of Persia and western Afghanistan knew their neighbours to 
their east as the dwellers of the valley of Sindh, or Sindhus, which by an as¬ 
piration became Hindus, and by a subsequent process of cockneyism India ; 
and now and for at least two thousand three hundred years, that word has 
indicated the whole of the peninsula of India, and for a long time also the 
Burman peninsula or “ India beyond the Ganges.” To the south-west of 
Persia, the nearest neighbours of the Iranians was the tribe of Band Tai, 
and all the Arabian tribes are now to the Persians the Tai race. The nearest 
to France was the province of the Allemani, and the German nation now are to 
the French the Allemands. A small province to the north-east of India was 
China, and the whole of China has now the same name. Kathai again 
was only a province or small country to the east of Tartary, and the whole 
of China is to Persian, Mongol, and Turkish writers Khata, whence the 
English Cathay, which has only recently become obsolete. To the south-east 
of Bengal, near Chittagong, a small tribe bore the name of Mags, and the whole 
of the people of Burmah is now, in the language of Bengal, indicated by the 
same name. Banga originally was a small tract on the east of the Gangetic 
delta; it is now the name of entire Bengal. Applying this principle to 
Yavana, we find it originally, i. e. in the time of Panini, who was a native 
of Kandahar, applied to a western country, probably Assyria—possibly Persia, 
or Media. When the Hindus receded to this side of the Indus, it was applied to 
# Tlie word Firing! comes from the French ‘ Franc/ through the Arabs and the 
Persians who pronounce it Firang. When the Spaniards and the Portuguese first came to 
India they were called Firang, and the error was never after rectified. It is now used to 
indicate the mixed descendants of Europeans. In the Vidyasundara of Bharatachandra, 
Firing! stands for the Portuguese, and Farasli for the French. 
