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YAVANAS ARE NOT GREEKS
By Ishwa, a poster at India–Forum.com
I do not believe that the ethnonym Yavana is derived from javana, but that both words sharethe meaning of moving swiftly. The horse connection was attached shortly later to the primarymeaning of Yavana as expellers. Francesco Brighenti is wrong to think that yavana has its horseconnection from javana (Juu is already a race horce in the RV.) and that it is late. It has alreadyRV niyutHe is also wrong that the meaning of moving swiftly seems to be from a wrong reading of  javana. RV yu means moving (swifly). It is derived from an ancient IA root yu or yaa with wordsgiving yaa+van, resembling words from the roots yu = to yoke and yu = to expel.We have a indigenous people named Yavana, for which there is a plausible indigenousetymology. We have a foreign people Ionian or Yauna, which has very doubtful etymologies (2older, and 2 younger).We have two homonyms Aramaic Ywn=yavanu and Yavana, but no connection between thesetwo, as Panini doesn't know and mention Hakhamanish or Achaemenids. (lipi if writing, doesn'tmean that it was known through Achaemenids. Besides, lipi is derived from smearing, painting,while he doesn't know cuneiform scratching, which would rather equate it with likh. Does lipifrom the root lip mean writing at all, or painting, and lipikara a painter or plasterer? At least ithas no connection to the cuneiform technique. Ashokan dipi is derived from Aramaic, but is itconnected to Paninian lipi? But this is another discussion)Let's get back to one classic source of the Ionian = Yavana equation myth and see how reliablehis sources and interpretations are.
Yavana thesis of A.K. Narain
The introduction to the Yavana issue with A.K. Narain’s thesis, the Indo-Greeks, gives a goodidea on what grounds the equation Yavana=Greeks is based. The more one looks at the barefacts in support, which are scarce anyway, the more one learns that it is based upon very shakyand weak grounds. [Himanshu Ray doesn’t add anything substantial to Narain’s thesis on theorigins. She presents the relevant material in a messy way, especially with regards of thetimeline of the several works, not making a distinction for instance between earlier and laterLaw books. Her better contribution is with regards to collecting epigraphical material onYavanas from the first century BCE and the first centuries CE.]Narain presents his thesis with an equation Yavana = Greek. While he starts in Appendix I withthe assumption with the words “may well have been”, it is clear that the equation is alreadysettled in his mind. His next sentences are just presented in such a way as to find the proofs forthis equation. This method is very convenient for anyone to proof any point. The huge leaps are
 
wished away by filling that up with wishful thinking. The bare facts presented by himself are tooscanty and too weak to proof his case, while ignoring what the presented works really have tosay, or while admitting that different category Indian works give an indigenous origin toYavanas, brushing that aside.I. Greek deportations?Narain has to proof that Indian Yona or Yavana has to be Greeks. But in order to get thisequation, he must proof that there were those Greeks called Yauna by Persians settled closeenough to Gandhara that Indians might have known these also as Yauna. [The question is: if Yavanas of the S-Indus area are not (Bactrian) Greeks, when did these, or rather Indo-Greeks,came to be called Yavana, getting fused with indigenous Yavanas]The evidence is scarce, here Narain could come up only with Herodotus (some data come fromlate post-Alexandrian sources) and Athenian owls.From A.K. Narain, _The Indo-Greeks_, Oxford, Claredon Press, 1957:"There is evidence to show that the Greeks of various city-states in Asia Minor were sometimesthreatened by the Persians with exile to the far eastern portions of the Achaemenid empire [fn.4: Herodotus VI. 9] and were actually settled in those areas [fn. 5: Besides the colonies of theThracians (?) at Nysa and of the Branchidae in Sogdiana, we know from Herodotus, IV. 204, thata colony of Libyans from Barca was settled in Bactria]" (p. 3)."The Athenian 'owls', together with the issues of other Greek cities, which have been found inAfghanistan, must have been brought there by the Greeks both as traders and settlers" (p. 4).CRITIQUEThere were threats and there were actual deportations. But what has Herodotus reallyrecorded about the Greeks:1. Barcaeans of Libya or Putaya were deported to a village Barca in Bactria. 2. There was athreat to Ionians to deport them to Phoenicia or only their girls (!) to Bactria, but actually theMilesians (including the priestly Branchidae) Ionians or Yauna were deported to Susa and andthe Tigris delta south. Herodotus knew the difference between the different Greeks, thePersians didn’t differentiate and called the people after their provinces! (iyam … in the nationor district lists)Thus, the pre-Alexandrian source that is brought up to assume that Greeks of different city-states have been deported to eastern provinces, doesn’t state this as fact at all! We have onlyBarcaean Putaya in a village in Bactria. No Yauna near Gandhara! Thus Panini, who neitherknows Achaemenids nor Ywn (Aramaic) or Yauna (OP) Greeks, couldn’t have knownBranchidae Yauna mercenaries, as per one late post-Alexandrian source, ended up later inremote Sogdiana perhaps some time before Alexander. These were clearly mercenaries in thePersian army. That is why Alexander massacred them. The same case with the Cariatae, whomust have been Karka, famous as mercenaries. The Thracians or Skudra (!) in Nysa, also from alate post-Alexandrian source, is based upon a few similarities between Nuristanis andThracians, but it is not proven. (anyway, are Thracian Skudras ethnic Greeks?)
 
Of course there were some Greek traders who had their quarters in cities and villages, and thushad their coinage to trade amongst each other. Says McEvilly: “Further, the pre-AlexandrianGreek coins found in Asia need not have been the result of lasting settlement, but only of trade,..” (McEvilly: The Shape of Ancient Thought, p. 360)The coins point to their use amongst Greek (mostly Karka and some Branchidae Yauna)mercenaries with the (mostly Sparda and Yauna) kurtash or contract workers of Susa andfurther west.Thus, we have a village of Barcaean Putaya or Libyan Greeks (not Yauna!) in Bactria in the 5thcentury BCE. And we have Brachidae Yauna mercenaries in Sogdiana and Cariatae Karkamercenaries nearby in the late 4th century BCE. The evidence is too scanty and thesemercenaries are too far away from Panini’s homeplace to remember insignificant pockets of Yauna, Karka and Putaya in the army of the Achaemenids or Hakhamanish, the last also notknown to the Ashtadhyayi, which should have been the case if Gandhara was a Persian satrapyin Panini’s time! And is it a huge leap from having scattered pockets of traders on the move tothe existence of a Yavana Janapada in the S-Indus area.II. Yavana = Ionian?Narain, then, turns to the (indigenous) etymology of Yavana in Appendix I to proof that Yavanasmust have been foreigners and thus Greeks.From A.K. Narain, _The Indo-Greeks_, Oxford, Claredon Press, 1957:“The term Yavana may well have been first applied by the Indians to the Greeks of various citiesof Asia Minor who were settled in the areas contiguous to north-west India.3The Yavanas were regarded by the law books and epics as degenerate Ksatriyas,4 and wereconsidered to be of Indian origin, the descendants of Turvasu.5 But their names alone aresufficient to prove that they were foreigners.6The word Yavana, if it is assumed to be Indian, can be derived in three ways. Firstly, from yu ='keeping away', 'averting' (dveSHo yavana),7 signifying one who is disliked. Secondly, from yu'mixing, mingling',8 (i.e. Yauti mishrayati vaa mishriibhavati sarvattra jaatibhedaabhaavaat itiyavanah),9 implying a mixed people. Thirdly, from the meaning, 'quick', 'swift'; a swift horse,10(i.e. Yavena gacchatiiti yavanah),11 denoting those who have a quick mode of conveyance.12These derivations taken together may indicate that the Yavanas were thought of as a mixedpeople, who had a quick mode of conveyance and who were disliked as aliens and invaders;13these derivations are, however, comparatively recent.
CRITIQUE
Greeks in NW IndiaSee above. Greeks from the different Achaemenid districts of Sparda, Yauna, Karka and Putayaare unknown to Indians and their works. Panini who doesn’t know these Greeks, even doesn’tknow Achaemenids or their empire! Neither do the Mahabharata, Tipitaka or GautamaDharmasutra.
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pbhoco

splitting names and then finding their meaning in Sanskrit is a bad idea. Yav,yuv..etc. eg: Sikandar doesnt sound greek, but still its a corruption of Alexander. But the word Sikandar has nothing to do with Alexander. Sikandar = Defending Man Got my point?

reply01 / 07 / 2010
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