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The word Yona in Pali and the Prakrits, and the analogue Yavana in Sanskrit and Yavanar in Tamil, were words used in Ancient India to designate Greek speakers. "Yona" and "Yavana" are transliterations of the Greek word for "Ionians" (Ancient Greek: Ἴωνες < Ἰάoνες < *Ἰάϝoνες), who were probably the first Greeks to be known in India.
Both terms appear in ancient Sanskrit literature. Yavana appears, for instance, in the Mahabharata, while Yona appears in texts such as the Sri Lankan chronicle Mahavamsa.
The Yona are mentioned in the Ashoka inscriptions, along with the Kambojas, as two societies where there are only nobles and slaves.[1]
Examples of direct association of these terms with the Greeks include:
- The mention of the "Yauna" in the Persepolis Administrative Archives (550–333 BC).[2]
- The mention of the "Yona king Aṃtiyoka" in the Edicts of Ashoka (280 BCE)
- The mention of the "Yona king Aṃtalikitasa" in the Heliodorus pillar in Vidisha (110 BCE)
- King Milinda and his bodyguard of "500 Yonas" in the Milinda Panha.
- The description of Greek astrology and Greek terminology in the Yavanajātaka "Nativity of the Yavanas" (150 CE).
- The mention of Alexandria on the Caucasus, "the city of the Yonas" in the Mahavamsa, Chapter 29 (4th century CE).
In general, the words "Yoṇa" or "Yoṇaka" were the current Greek Hellenistic forms, while the term "Yavana" was the Indian word to designate the Greeks or the Indo-Greeks.[3]
- ^ Thomas, Edward Joseph (1933). The History of Buddhist Thought. Asian Educational Services. p. 85 with footnote 2. ISBN 978-81-206-1095-8.
- ^ Waters, Matt (2014). Ancient Persia: A Concise History of the Achaemenid Empire, 550–330 BCE. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 173. ISBN 978-1-10700-9-608.
- ^ The Greeks in Bactria and India by William Woodthorpe Tarn p.257