THE HARMONY OF VIRTUE

198 The Harmony of Virtuewas derived from the Greek suringks or not, I cannot take uponme to say, but will assume on the authority of better linguiststhan myself that it was so — though I think it is as well to besceptical of all such Greek derivations until the connection is provedbeyond doubt, for such words even when not accounted for bySanskrit itself may very easily be borrowed from the originallanguages. Bengali, for instance, preserves the form “Sudanga”where the cerebral letter is Dravidian. But if so, if this wordcame into fashion along with Greek culture, and became the wordfor a tunnel, what could be more natural than that the recitershould substitute for an old and disused word the one which wasfamiliar to his audience? Again much has been made of the frequentoccurrence of Yavana, Vahlika, Pehlava, Saka, Huna; asto Yavana its connection with Iaon does not seem to me beyonddoubt. It was certainly at one time applied to the BactrianGreeks, but so it has been and is to the present day appliedto the Persians, Afghans and other races to the northwest ofIndia. Nor is the philological connection between Iaon and Yavanavery clear to my mind. Another form Yauna seems to representIaon fairly well; but are we sure that Yauna and Yavanawere originally identical? A mere resemblance however close isthe most misleading thing in philology. Upon such resemblancesPocock made out a very strong case for his theory that theGreeks were a Hindu colony. The identity of the Sakas andSakyas was for a long time a pet theory of European Sanskritistsand on this identity was based the theory that Buddha wasa Scythian reformer of Hinduism. This identity is now generallygiven up, yet it is quite as close as that of Yavana and Yaunaand as closely in accordance with the laws of the Sanskritlanguage. If Yauna is the original form, why was it changed toYavana? It is no more necessary than that mauna be changedto mavana. If Yavana be earlier and Yauna a Prakrit corruption,how are we to account for the short ‘a’ and the ‘v’; therewas no digamma in Greek in the time of Alexander. But sincethe Greeks are always called Yavanas in Buddhist writings, wewill waive the demand for strict philological intelligibility andsuppose that Yavana answers to Iaon. The question yet remains:when did the Hindus become acquainted with the existence of