244 THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY. [August, 1875. author there gives unbounded scope to his imagination, and furnishes a very beautiful illus- tration of the Hindu belief in the transmigra- tion of the soul. The other stories tell how the mountains and the Girnar Brahmans came into "Vastrapatha. But the above extracts will convey a sufficiently correct idea of the charac- ter of the contents of the Muhdtmya. Siva gives a caution to Farvati against disclosing* this account of the VastrApatha to an un- believer. Kailasa is promised to the hearer of this story. COBRESPONDEXCE AND MISCELLANEA. PROFESSOR WEBER ON THE TAYANAS, MAHABOi.au V A, K A. MAYAN A, AND KRISHNAJANlLiSHTAMf. To the Editor of the "Indian Antiquary." Sir, — Since I last wrote, you have produced some more translations of papers written by rae on different points of Indian literature and anti- quities, and I am very thankful to you for this honour. On the other hand, there have appeared, either in your columns or in those of other Indian journals, several articles directed against the views maintained by me therein, or in the papers for- merly translated by you. I think it proper there- fore, with your leave, to notice them earsonly, and to defend or to give np my own positions accord* ing to the value of the objections raised. Follow- ing the chronological order, I divide my observa- tions under four heads : 1, the Ya vanas ; 2, the Mdhdbhdshya ; 3, the Edmdijana; 4, the Krishna- janmdshtami. 1. Tiie Yavanas.— j&r. Eehatsek's translation of my paper Hindu Pronunciation of Greek, and Greek Pronunciation of Hindu Wonh (vol. II. pp. 1+3-150), bus elicited from the pen of Babu EAjendra L&la Mitra a very curious article " On the supposed identity of the Greeks with the Yavanas of Sans- krit writers" {Jour. As. Soc. Bent). 1874, pp. 2 1-. 7!>j. I leave aside all speculations as to the etymology and origin of the name itself, as foreign to the question at issue, and restrict myself to the his- torical proofs of its actual occurrence in India. The oldest passages in which we as yet find it are those famous edicts of king Priyadasi which mention twice the Antiyoka Yona- r aj a , once alone (tohl. II.), and again along with Ttilamaya,*Antikona,Maka,Aliksa(Tn). da 1 a : see the facsimile of the KMlsi Inscription in Cunningham's ArcheenUyicnl Survey, I. 217. hi. xli. This facsimile gives us in the seventh line also the reading Yona-ka(m)bojesu, the very com- pound which is used so often in the Tali texts, ami which (see my Indische Slrcifm, H. 321) fixes! if other proof was required, die geographical positiou of the Yon as by that of the other frontier-people so closely allied with them therein, the Kam bo j as . Wherever we find them both mentioned in this compound, or even only along with each other, we may be quite sure that we have to understand under the Yon as the Bak- trian Greeks, the neighbours of Kabul. This decides at once the question also as to the mean- ing of Yavana m the oldest works hi thy Brahmanic literature in which the word is mentioned,— the Mahdbitdrata, MahdbJidskya, and Edmdijana. The compound Aaka-Yavanam in the Bh&ihya shows the Yavanas in a similar intimate connection alBO with the Sakas, Indoskythes (and in my opinion, see Ind. Studien, XTTL. 306, the Yavana king mentioned in it as the besieger of S ak eta is not necessarily to be taken as a Greek king, but may possibly already denote a Saka king, as the name of the Yavanas went with their supremacy to their successors in it, the 3akns ; see below). There is only one apparently older passage in which the name of the Yavanas is mentioned, viz. that sntra of Pftnini which teaches to form the Tamndnt {lipi, writing of the Yavana, as the varttikaJcdra explains). But the age of Ptnini is not settled at all ; and though he may be older than the passages of the Mihdhhdrata, and is really older of course than the Mahdlhdshya or the Edmdyana, still there is not the slightest proof that he also preceded Alexander and the establishment of the Greek Baktrian kingdoms. And, no swsk proof existing, it is certainly very provoking to take just this his mentioning of the Yavanas ns a proof to the contrary, viz. of his being later than Alexander (conf. Ind. Stud. XIIL 375) : for it would no doubt be very hard to understand nnder the Yavanas of this G a n d h ft ra author any other people but those famous neighbours of the Kambojas and Gandhftras , and this the more so, as in fact we know at present ofnc other people of that name. For with regard to the opinion of some scholars, Lassen for instance, that Yavana was used by the Hindus originally for a Semitic tribe or nation, we must consider it as a mere gratuitous supposition, fto long as it is not substantiated by any real fact. Whore are the passages to countenance it P Let them be brought
- At Joailgadb, Turamayo.
