Page:History of India Vol 2.djvu/230

 192 THE SUNGA, KANVA, AND ANDHRA DYNASTIES Kanchi, or Conjevaram, in the Chingleput District, Madras. The word Yavana is etymologically the same as " Ionian,'* and originally meant " Asiatic Greek," but has been used with varying connotation at different periods. In the third century B. c. Asoka gave the word its original meaning, describing Antiochos Theos and the other contemporary Hellenistic kings as Ya- vanas. In the second century A. D. the term had a vaguer signification, and was employed as a generic term to denote foreigners coming from the old Indo- Greek kingdoms on the northwestern frontier. These three foreign tribes, Sakas, Pahlavas, and Yavanas, at that time settled in Western India as the lords of a conquered native population, were the objects of the hostility of Vilivayakura II. The first foreign chieftain in the west whose name has been preserved is Bhumaka the Kshaharata, who attained power at about the beginning of the second century A. D., and was followed by Nahapana, who aggrandized his domin- ions at the expense of his Andhra neighbours. The Kshaharata clan seems to have been a branch of the Sakas. In the year 126 A. D. the Andhra king Vilivayakura H recovered the losses which his kingdom had suffered at the hands of the intruding foreigners, and utterly destroyed the power of Nahapana. The hostility of the Andhra monarch was stimulated by the disgust felt by all Hindus, and especially by the followers of the ortho- dox Brahmanical system, at the outlandish practices