273 
1874.] Rajendralala Mitra— The Yavanas of Sanskrit Writers. 
borrowed them from the Greeks, than any number of common words can be 
put forth as proofs of the Sanskrit language having been borrowed from the 
same source. Take, for instance, the word juka from the root yuj to join; 
if we may accept it as a proof of its being Greek from its resemblance to 
Ivyov, what is there to prevent our believing it to have been derived from 
any other European language from its resemblance in sound and sense to 
the English yoke , the Saxon geoc , Danish juk, Swedish ok , French joug, 
Italian giogo , Spanish yugo , Latin jug am , or Russian igo ? Again, Tri- 
kona is formed of tri three and kona ‘ an angle’ or 4 corner,’ both old 
and well known Sanskrit words, and I see no reason why we should 
call it an importation from the Greek language. Doubtless, the equivalent 
of tri in Greek is rpes and of kona kov cos ; but for the Sanskrit tri we have 
Saxon thres, Swedish tre y German drei, French trois, Italian tre , and Spanish 
and Latin tres, and for the Sanskrit, kona , French, cona , Italian cono, Spa¬ 
nish cono , and Latin conus ; and the argument urged against the Greek 
origin of juka applies to this with equal force. The same may be 
said of some of the other words. The fact is that technical terms being 
specialised common words, and Sanskrit being derived from the Aryan 
language, the mother of all the European languages named above, a great 
number of common words as well as technical terms must be closely similar 
in all of them ; but such similitude cannot be accepted as a proof of any one 
of those languages having been derived from another of them. Doubtless 
some of the terms are very like Greek, and may be Greek for aught we know 
to the contrary ; the mediaeval names of some of the signs of the Zodiac, 
such as Tuvan for Taurus, Leya for Leo, are very probably so; but they are 
insufficient by themselves to prove the fact that they were taken directly 
from the Greeks by the Hindus. On the contrary, seeing that the inter¬ 
course of the Hindus and Arabs dates from a very early period; that 
the latter borrowed the system of Nakshatras, # or lunar asterisms or 
mansions—the manazil of the Arabs, from the Hindus; that Hindu 
authors are quoted by Arab writers; that Arabic technical terms are 
pretty frequently used by the Hindus; and that the Arabs translated 
largely both from Greek and Hindu astronomical works, the presumption 
would be strong that the Hindus got such of their Greek astronomical terms 
as can be proved to be unquestionably of Greek origin through the medium 
of the Arabs, and not directly from the Greeks. There is no separate dis¬ 
tinct word for Greece or the Greeks in the Sanskrit language, and it has 
* Dr. Weber is of opinion that the system of Nakshatras was originated by the Chal¬ 
deans, and from them it went on the one side to the Hindus, and on the other to the Arabs. 
M. Biot holds that the Chinese sieus are the prototypes of the Hindu asterisms. Professor 
Max Muller repudiates this in toto, and maintains that the Hindus originated the system, 
and from them the Arabs and the Chinese got it. The subject, however, is of no import¬ 
ance in connexion with the object of this paper. 
