________________
C
84 INDIA AS DESCRIBED IN EARLY TEXTS
Yonas or Yonakas as Bactrian Greeks founded principalities in this very region of India establishing their suzerainty even over Mathurā 1 in the south-east and over Surastra 2 and Besnagar (Vessanagara near Vedisa). When the Sakas (Scythians) invaded Uttarapalha and established themselves there, the Yonas or Bactrians and other Greeks appear to have made political and matrimonial alliances with them.
The Yonas as the Ionian Greek settlers figure in Asokan records, precisely as in the Pali Suttas, as semi-independent or independent tribes. But the Yonas as the Bactrian Greeks were all along ruled by the monarchs of their own. They adhered, in their official documents at least, not only to their national language (Yavana-bhāsā) but also to their national alphabet (Yavana-lipi).
The Mahabharata (xii, 207.43) introduces the Kambojas (Pali Kambojas) along with the Yaunas, Gandhāras, Kirātas and Barbaras as peoples of Uttarapatha (Uttarāpathajanmānaḥ). The constant association of them with the Gandhāras and Yaunas in the Great Epic, the Pali texts and the early Indian inscriptions
1 Cf. Hathigumpha Inscription of Kharavela: Madhuram apayato Yarana-rājā.
2 Cf. Junagarh Rook Inscription of Rudradāman I.
2 Of. Besnagar Garuda-pillar Inscription of Heliodoros.
