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( ૨ ) ડા. સ્ટીન કાના
Kirkeveien 114 C. Oslo, Aug. 10, 1937
My dear Vijaya Indra Suriji,
Many thanks for your letter of the 15th ult. You have evidently not received the letter I wrote about a month ago about mentioning of Jain saints in Brahmi and Kharaoshthi Inscription. I shall therefore repeat that there is absolutely no trace in Kharaoshthi records, and it is absolutely certain that Nahapana's name does not occur in the Mathura Lion Capital inscriptions. That would in itself hardly have been impossible because the Lion Capital is older than Nahapana.
There is further not the slightest support for the assumption that Bhumaka was the father of Nahapana. The records about Bhumaka are his coins, which are no doubt older than those of Nahapana, but the latter's coins and inscriptions no where mention his father, and it is absolutely unwarranted to assume that he was the son of Bhumaka.
You will have noticed that the form Bhumaka is rather barbaric, and it has been assumed, I believe rightly, that it is a clumsy translation of a foreign name. Now we know that the western Kshatrapas were Sakas i. e. Iranians and we know that the Saka word for Bhumi was ysama. I therefore think that I was right in assuming that Bhumaka is a barbaric rendering of the name ysamotika and ysamotika the father of (not ghsamotika, which is a wrong reading) was Chashtana who succeeded to the position of Kshatrapa and Mahakshatrapa after the defeat of Nahapana by the Andhras when the Sakas were able to recover something of their lost power.................
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With kindest regards, Yours Sincerely, STEN KONOW.
