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TRIBES IN ANCIENT INDIA
Sabaean monogram. Bhandarkar argues when a foreign money for the first time comes into circulation along with the native coinage of a country, all the new specimens are tested, and those, which are found not deficient in weight or quality of metal, are sanctioned by marking them with an official stamp which may consist of a single letter or symbol. These official stamps which are found on the owls of Athens, discovered in South Arabia, are conspicuous by their absence on those found on the frontiers of India. The practice of putting such counter-marks on coins was not unknown in or near India also, for the silver Persian sigloi which were current in the Punjab bear Indian counter-marks. When there is no countermark, it is not reasonable to say that they were brought there in course of trade. Bhandarkar 2 therefore concludes: The natural inference must be that they were native to some outlying district of India which was peopled by the Yavanas or Greeks. And as the original owls of Athens have been assigned to circa 594-560 B.C., a Greek colony, it is possible to infer, may have been established near India about 550 B.C.' Ray Chaudhuri 3 also notes that the exact situation of the Yona territory has not yet been determined. In the Mahāvamsa (XII) we find that the Thera Mahārakkhita was sent to the country of the Yonas. This work also refers to its chief city, Alasanda, which Geiger identifies with the town of Alexandria founded by the Macedonian conqueror near Kabul. Not only the Yonas are mentioned in the inscriptions of Asoka, we also find a Yavana official or a vassal Yavanarāja called Tushāspha ruling as governor of Surāstra with his capital at Girinagara (Girnar) during the days of Asoka, as we learn from the Junāgadh Rock Inscription of Mahākshatrapa Rudradāman. Vincent Smith argues that the form of the name shows that the Yavanarāja must have been a Persian. But Ray Chaudhuri contends that if Greeks and other foreigners adopted Hindu names there is no wonder that some of them assumed Iranic appellations. There is, then, no good ground for assuming that Tushāspha was not a Greek, but a Persian. After the death of Asoka, a Yavana army crossed the Hindu Kush, which was the northern frontier of Asokan empire on the ruins of which an Indo-Greek kingdom arose. The Yuga Purāna section of the Gārgi Samhitā points to the decline of Maurya power in the Madhyadeśa when it says: “Tatah Sāketam ākramya Pañcālam Mathurāmstathā | Yavanaḥ dustavikrāntaḥ prāpsyati Kusuma
1 J.R.A.S., 1895, 874 and ff. 2 Carmichael Lectures, 1921, p. 29. 3 Political History of Ancient India, 4th Ed., p. 253. 4 Mahāvamsa, Geiger's translation, p. 194.
