Early History of Orissa

SR No.: 006922
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Amarchand Mittal
Publisher: Jain Cultural Research Society
Publication Year: 1957
Total Pages: 506
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 9 MB

Page 300

INTERNAL EVIDENCES
275
There is also, as Dr. Tarn apprehends,' an element of conjecture in the decipherment of the sentence which states what the Yavanarāja did, as the translations differ considerably. Konow's version was :—And through the uproar occasioned by the action (i. e. the incidents of Khāravela's invasion of Magadha) the Yavana king Demetrius went off to Mathurā in order to relieve his generals who were in trouble.' Jayaswal's version was: "On account of the report (uproar) occasioned by the acts of valour (i. e. the capture of a fortress etc.) the Greek king Demet(rios) drawing in his army and transport retreated to abandon Mathurā.' Then in 1928, Jayaswal put forward a totally different view. What the inscrip. tion refers to, he said, is the Greek king (he did not say Demetrius) being beaten off from Patliputra when he attacked it and retreated to Mathurā. He had, evidently, discarded the abandonment of Mathurā now, and on this theory, Khāravela does not come into the picture here at all."
It appears then that all we can get at, taking the most favourable view, is that a Greek king, who may have been Demetrius, retreated to Mathurā. So much is known from other sources. The Yuga Purāņa® records
1 GBI, 1952, App. V, p. 458. 2. Acta Orientalia, Vol. I, p. 27. 3. JBORS, XIII, 1927, p. 228. 4. JBORS, XIV, p. 417. 5. Tarn, GBI, p. 458.
6. Translation of Sections V & VII, concerning Greeks (Qtd. GBI, App. IV) :
(V) After this, having invaded Sāketa, the Pañchālas and
Mathurā, the viciously valiant Yavanas (Greeks) will reach Kusumadhvaja (the town of the flower-etandard), Then the thick mud-fortification (embankment) at Patliputra being reached, all the provinces will be in