The Yadavas were Greeks?

Scientific challenges to the beliefs promoted by the Brahma Kumaris so called "World Spiritual University"
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ex-l

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The Yadavas were Greeks?

Post18 Oct 2007

I was reading some interesting articles about the Mahabharata and they were suggesting that Yavana (Yadava in Hindi) could be the Sanskritized form of the name Ionia, the same in Hebrew. (Ionia was part of the Ancient Greco-Bactrian Kingdom and the Ionias one of the 4 main tribes).

"Yona", the Pali equivalent was also used to designate the first Greeks to be known in the East. The terms later took on a wider meaning of Barbarians and was designated to all foreign tribes or Westerners visiting India.

They appear not just in the mythic epics such as the Mahabharata but also in the Edicts of Ashoka (280 BCE), the Heliodorus pillar in Vidisha (110 BCE), the Milinda Panha (a Buddhist text dating from approximately 100 BCE which records a dialogue between the Indo-Greek King Menander I and a Buddhism sage N?gasena and the Yavanajataka (Sayings of the Yavanas 150 CE). Mention of "Alexandria, the city of the Yonas" is also in the Mahavamsa (4th century CE).

If you are interested in real history, and it really is quite interesting, try putting any of the terms in a search engine and following the links. The Ancient world was surprisingly small and well connected ... even without atomic powered vimanas to jet about in.

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