Indian Antiquary Vol 02

SR No.: 032494
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 428
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 20 MB

Page 159

GREEK WORDS AMONG HINDUS.
MAY, 1873.]
the southern Buddhists; at the same time with him also the name of his birth-place and capital Alasan då (or - sadda), i. e. Aλegavopeia is mentioned. Possibly also, as Lassen assumes, the name of the Mlechha-or rather Pârasika-king Megha which occurs in the drama Mudrarakshasa, contains a reminiscence of the old royal title peyas Barikeus, because, although this drama itself is comparatively modern, the author of it may probably have drawn the materials for it from ancient sources, and the name Basili (i.e. doubtless Bartheus) actually occurs, according to Schiefner, among the northern Buddhists. As I have also already ventured further to surmiset that the royal name Jaloka, Jalaukas in the Kashmir chronicle is referable to Zeλeukos, it is further possible also that their Amita, Amitâba, is connected with Auvvras. The buildings of Asura Maya immortalized in the Mahabharata reminds us of the edifices of IIroλepatos, and the former moreover has perhaps inherited only from Πτολεμαιος the astronomer a portion of his later reputation as a teacher of astronomy, just as also finally the powerful Yavana king Kaserumant, in the Mahabharata, doubtless represents only a faded reminiscence of the kaurap of post-Christian centuries, transformed by a fanciful popular etymology.
Two of the above names are preserved to us, perhaps in a direct translation, Apollodotos namely as Bhagadatta,§ and Demetrios, as Datt&mitra,|| the first appearing in the Mahdbharata, as a Yavana king, and the second as a Sindhu-Sauvira king. Of the Roman age there is, strangely enough, besides the name Romaka, T nothing but the word dindra-denarius. Whether thateri in Ebn Haukal is referable to σrarnpos or Terpа-, or, according to Dowson's recently ex
See my Ind. Skizzen, pp. 83, 84.
+ See my dissertation on the Ramayana, p. 33. [Ind. Antiq. Vol. I. p. 240.]
I Ind. Skizzen, p. 88; jalaukas, "leech," and ka serumant, "endued with a spine," are but little suitable really to have been original names of kings. Indeed, Lassen derives Jaloka from jayaleka (II. 273). The transformation of Turamaya into Asura Maya may per haps be recognized as due to the political tendencies of
those times.
According to Von Gutschmid's supposition. Comp. Ind. Stud. V. 152.
Thus according to Lassen. On his town Demetrias Dattamitrt, see Ind. Skizz., pp. 82, 83; my translation of the Malavikagnimitram, Pref. p. 47; and my Dissert. on the Ramayana, p. 77 [Ind. Antiquary, vol. I. p. 179]; from it a Yonaka, son of Dhammadeva, makes his appearance as a donor of pious gifts in the inscriptions of a Buddhist temple [Jour. Bomb. B. R. As. Soc. vol. V. p. 54].
In the inscriptions mentioned in the preceding note, mention is made also of the gifts of a Romaka, son of Velidata. In the great Jataka collection (see Westergaard, Catal. der Orient. MSS. der Kopenhag. Bibl., p. 39) also a Romakajatakam is mentioned (III. 8, 7, no.
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pressed opinion, has nothing to do with Greek, remains undecided. In dramma the word 8paxun was preserved down to late times.
The words khalina, bridle-xaλivos, and surungá (in the Mahávanso and Mahabharata) a mine-shaftauptys, refer probably to bellico-political relations with the Greeks. Here I recall to mind also my surmise (Ind. Stud. IX. 380) concerning the remarkable statement of the Pániniya Sikshd, v. 6, on the salutation of the Suráshtra women (Sauráshṭriká nári): ara according to one and ta kra according to the other recension,-that the reading ought to be kherâ, or rather that it is to be borrowed from the second hemistich, and that therein a reference to the Greek salutation xape is to be sought.*
Not so much to political as to commercial relations the words kastira-kaarσirepos,† kasturiκαστωρείον,kargu---κεγχρος, weld ink-μελας, gamita samida-repidarist, Hind. mulva-poλußos §, are indebted for their acceptance. Esop's fables are probably responsible for the two words lopdkaἀλωπηξ and kramelaka--καμηλος, both of them connected with Hindu words or rather roots. The most numerous appropriations belong to the astronomico-astrological domain. In the first placeas already observed, by Asura Maya-who, according to later traditions, lived in Romakapura -is possibly meant ПIroλepatos the author of the Almagest; further by Manitt ha perhaps Mave@wv the author of the Apotelesmata is to be understood;|| at all events by Paulisa a Пavλos is meant,-probably Paulus Alexandrinus, in whose Elraywyn almost all the technical astrological terms which have passed into Sanskrit may be identified, whence probably we ought to recognize it as the basis of the Paulisa-siddhanta which unfortunately exists only in scanty and insufficient
272). Perhaps this text may again afford desiderated information on Roman relations. (Comp. below the data from the Bâverujâṭaka.)
Surashtra-Eupaorpa was long subject to Greek dominion. The oldest coins of those parts show Greek types and letters; the princes were satraps of the Greek kings, and reckoned, Thomas states, according to the era of the Seleucides.-Yavana girls still appear in the dramas of Kalidasa as attending to the personal wants of kings, and probably they saluted them also with the salutation of their Yavana language; comp. also Introd. to my Transl. of the Malavika. pp. 35, 46, 47. (It may be remarked that already T's. V. 3, 7, 2 mentions a female body. guard.).
+ From Karaσionpos ? see. Ind. Skizzen, pp. 75, 89.
Because the assumption that these (comp. simila, similago) are old Indo-Germanic words is suspicious even from the meaning. Wheat-flour was scarcely known to our Indo-Germanic ancestors.
§ Comp. Pott in the Zeitschrift für d. K. des Morg. IV. 261;-kupya, a base metal, can hardly be said to have anything to do etymologically with cuprum.
Kern (Introd. to Vardha Mihira's Brihat Samhita, p. 52) once thought also of Manilius.