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314 POLITICAL HISTORY OF ANCIENT INDIA
with the Paradi or Par river in the Surat District) is mentioned in a Nāsik inscription."
The Bhojas and the Rathikas (Ristikas ) were evidently the ancestors of the Mahābhojas and the Mahārathis of the Sātavāhana period. The Bhojas apparently dwelt in Berar, 3 and the Rathikas or Ristikas possibly in Mahārāshțra or certain adjoining tracts.* The former were, in later ages, connected by matrimonial alliances with chieftains of the Kanarese country.
In the west Aśoka's Empire extended to the Arabian Sea and embraced all the Aparāntas : including no doubt the vassal state (or confederation of states) of Surāshtra the affairs of which were looked after by the Yavana-rāja Tushāspha with Giri-nagara (Girnar) as his capital, Dr. Smith says that the form of the name shows that the Yavana-rāja must have been a Persian. But according to this interpretation the Yavana Dhammadeva, the Śaka Ushavadāta (Risahabha-datta), the Parthian Suvišākha and the Kushān Vasudeva must have been all native Hindus of India. If Greeks and other foreigners adopted Hindu names there is no wonder that some of them assumed Irānic appellations. There is, then, no good ground for assuming that Tushāspha was not a Greek, but a Persian.
1 Rapson, Andhra Coins, lvi. Pargiter places the Pāradas in the northwest, AIHT, p. 268. . 2 Smith, Asoka, third ed.. pp. 169-70,
3 Cf. Bhoja-kata, Bhāt kuli in Amraoti.
4 The Rāmāyana, IV. 41. 10, places the Rishţikas between the Vidarbhas of (Berar) and the Māhishakas of the Nerbudda valley or of Mysore. Rathika is also used as an official designation and it is in that sense that the expression seems to be used in the Yerragudi inscription (Ind. Culture, I, 310 ; Aiyangar Com. Vol. 35; IHQ, 1933, 117).
5 Sūrpāraka, Nāsik, etc., according to the Mārkandeya P. 57, 49-52. 6 Cf. IA, 1919, 145; EHVS, 2nd, ed. pp. 28-29.
