________________
THE YONAS
155
could not be thought of, and the Nysaeans themselves joined with Alexander. Three hundred of them on their mountain horses joined the army of the Yavana king and followed him to battle in the plains of the Punjab. The evidence furnished by Arrian's account of Nysa shows that Nysa was a Greek colony before the advent of Alexander to India.2 In the inscription of Asoka, we find mention of the Yonas along with Kāmbojas. The question here arises-Who were these Yonas ? Bhandarkar in his Carmichael Lectures, 1921 (pp. 28ff.), points out that it is impossible to identify the Yonas of Rock Edict XIII with the Greeks of Bactria because the same edict was promulgated when Antiochus Theos, King of Syria, was living, his name being actually specified therein. In Asoka's time Bactria was included in the Syrian empire of Antiochus Theos. We learn from Greek historians, Trogus, Justin and Strabo, that it was Diodotus who first made Bactria independent. He was a Satrap of this province under Antiochus Theos. The death of Antiochus probably caused disturbance when Diodotus made himself independent in Bactria. So the Yonas of the Asokan inscription are to be located elsewhere. Bhandarkar therefore concludes: 'I suspect that it has to be identified with Aria or Arachosia which were the two provinces ceded by Seleucuos to Chandragupta and which must have been inherited intact by Asoka. I admit it is not possible to locate these Yonas exactly, but this much is certain that they were outside the kingdom of Antiochus Theos, and lived in Aśoka's empire in a territory adjoining Gandhāra but outside India.' 5 Bhandarkar therefore holds the view that in all likelihood, the Yavanas of Rock Edict XIII must have come and settled in large numbers in some outlying province of India long before Alexander. Numismatic evidence also lends support to such a view. Coins similar to those of the earliest type of Athens are known to have been collected from the north-west frontiers of India. They bear head of Athena on the obverse and owls on the reverse. These owls of Athens have been picked up in Southern Arabia Felix. But none of the owls found in the east are of the types known from Athens. The coins found in Arabia might have travelled there as a result of commercial intercourse, for they are generally counter-marked on the obverse with Sabaean letters or are scratched on the reverse with a
1 Cambridge History of India, Vol. I, p. 354. 2 Carmichael Lectures, 1921, p. 32.
3 Rock Edict XIII. 4 Cf. “Yona-Kamboyeshu Nabhake Na(bhi)tina Bhoja-Pitinikeshu AmdhraPuli(de) shu savatra devanam priyasa dhramanuśasti anuvatamti.' (Shabhazgarhi text-Inscriptions of Asoka, edited by Bhandarkar and Majumdar, pp. 53-4.) 5 Carmichael Lectures, 1921, p. 26.
6 Ibid., p. 27. 7 Numismatic Chronicle, XX, 191.
