A STUDY OF HELLENISTIC INFLUENCE IN ANCIENT SRI LANKAN ARCHITECTURE ~ FREE PDF

    This PDF is the MA Dissertation of Weerasinghe, Savin P. It was done in the National  and Kapodistrian University of Athens and it gives us a very interesting aspect on the topic of Greek influence in ancient Sri Lankan architecture.

The PDF is available here https://pergamos.lib.uoa.gr/uoa/dl/object/2972403/file.pdf

All credit goes to the author.

 

PANDAIE THE DAUGHTER OF HERACLES WHO BECAME QUEEN OF THE PANDYAN KINGDOM

 

In Greek Religion , Pandaie or Pandae (Ancient Greek: Πανδαίη) was a daughter of Heracles who was born in India, and became the ruler of a kingdom in South India. In the account of the historian Megasthenes, she was a queen of the Pandya dynasty.

Pandaie was said to have been assigned a kingdom in India by her father, who established specific laws for it, and to become its eponym. According to Megasthenes, she was also given by Heracles 500 elephants, 4000 horses and infantry of 130 000.

According to Pliny the Elder, Pandaie was the only female child of Heracles (which, however, contradicts the accounts that mention Macaria, Eucleia and Manto as his daughters), and was therefore especially favored by Him. For that reason He made her queen of the Pandae, who since then became the only nation throughout India to be ruled by women. Pandaie's descendants, Pliny relates, reigned over three hundred cities and commanded an army of 5,100 plus five hundred elephants.

Polyaenus informs that Heracles allotted to Pandaie the southern part of India which is by the sea, subdividing it into 365 cantons and imposing on each a yearly tax that was to be paid on a certain fixed day of the year. Should a canton refuse to pay, other ones would be obliged to compensate the loss.

Pandyas are also mentioned in the inscriptions of Maurya emperor Ashoka (3rd century BCE). In his inscriptions (2nd and 13th Major Rock Edict), Ashoka refers to the peoples of south India – the Cheras, Pandyas and Satiyaputras. These polities, possibly not part of the Maurya empire, were on friendly terms with Ashoka:

The conquest by dharma has been won here, on the borders, and even six hundred yojanas (5,400–9,600 km) away, where the Greek king Antiochos rules, beyond there where the four kings named Ptolemy, Antigonos, Magas and Alexander rule, likewise in the south among the Cholas, the Pandyas, and as far as Tamraparni river.

(Major Rock Edict No.13), Ven. S. Dhammika translation.

Everywhere within the conquered province of King Piyadasi (Ashoka), the beloved of the gods, as well as in the parts occupied by the faithful, such as Chola, Pandya, Satiyaputra, and Keralaputra, even as far as Tambapanni (Ceylon) and within the dominions the Greek (of which Antiochus generals are the rulers ) everywhere the heaven-beloved Raja Piyadasi’s double system of medical aid is established- both medical aid for men and medical aid for animals.

Major Rock Edict No.2), James Prinsep translation.

Edited from Wikipedia

FROM KABUL TO SRI LANKA - AN EPIC PILGRIMAGE LED BY A GREEK BUDDHIST MONK

ONE OF THE GREATEST PILGRIMAGES OF ALL TIME, GUIDED BY THE GREEK BUDDHIST MONK MAHADHARMARAKSITA

Mahadhammarakkhita (Sanskrit: Mahadharmaraksita, literally "Great protector of the Dharma") was a Greek Buddhist master, who lived during the 2nd century BCE, during the reign of the Indo-Greek king Menander.

In the Mahavamsa, a key Pali historical text, he is recorded as having travelled from “Alasandra” (thought to be Alexandria of the Caucasus, around 150 kilometers north of today's Kabul, or possibly Alexandria of the Arachosians), with 30,000 monks  for the dedication ceremony of the Maha Thupa ("Great stupa") at Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka, when it was completed shortly after the death of the Sri Lankan king Dutthagamani Abhaya (c. 161 - 137 BCE).


















The Mahamvasa lists the congregations that visited Sri Lanka for the dedication of the Maha Thupa, explaining that:
"From Alasanda the city of the Yonas came the thera (elder) Yona Mahadhammarakkhita with thirty thousand bhikkhus." (Mahavamsa, XXIX)


This reference says a lot about the role of the Greeks in the Buddhist community of that era;Alexandria of the Caucasus or Alexandria of the Arachosians, cities under the control of the Greek king Menander, had a Buddhist monk population of possibly as many as 30,000, indicating a flourishing Buddhist culture under the Greeks.

The head of this Buddhist community was a Greek (Yona) Buddhist elder whose religious name was Mahadhammarakkhita ("Great protector of the Dharma), a fact that illustrates the involvement of Greeks in the development of the Buddhist faith, in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent.

They were able to travel freely south as far as Sri Lanka; this is probably evidence of some political stability along the west coast of the Indian subcontinent. It should be noted that during that time, the Shunga Empire was persecuting Buddhists in the East.

It is also separately established through another text, the Milinda Panha, and archeological evidence, that Menander himself ruled a vast empire in northern India, and that he became a Buddhist arhat. According to Buddhist tradition, he was a great benefactor of the Buddhist faith, along with Ashoka or the Kushan Kanishka.

Source : Buddhism Guide 

GREEK SETTLEMENTS AND INFLUENCE IN SRI LANKA

The Mahavamsa refers to two visits by ‘Yona’(Greeks) to ancient Sri Lanka. Mahavamsa says that Pandukabhaya (pre- 3rd century BCE) set apart grounds near the west gate of Anuradhapura for the ‘Yona’. That is the first visit. Several centuries later, in the time of Dutugemunu (167-131 BCE) Yona bhikkus arrived to celebrate the completion of the Mahathupa.

 That is the second visit of the Yonas. Researchers have queried whether these Yonas were Greeks. Merlin Peris, Emeritus professor of Western Classics, University of Peradeniya, who researched into the two visits, is very definite that ‘Yona’ refers to Greeks and not any other group. The word ‘Yona’ is derived from ‘Ionian’, the Persian word for Greeks. ‘It was known before Pandukabhaya’s time. Dipawamsa refers to a famine of Yonaka in an earlier world cycle. India’s Sanskrit grammarian Panini (4th century BCE) spoke of the Yavana script.

The Mahavamsa Greeks (Yona) came from northwestern India. They may have got there in the time of the Persian king Cyrus, (559- 529 BCE) Darius (522–486 BCE) or Xerxes (486–465 BCE). But the most solid theory is that they went there with Alexander the Great of Macedon who invaded the Indus delta between 327-303 BCE. After his death, the Greeks stayed on. Seleucus Nicator, a general in Alexander’s army took over the lands conquered by Alexander. Merlin Peris observed that Pandukabhaya’s period of rule in Sri Lanka fitted in with the Alexander- Seleucid period in India. He suggests that Pandukabhaya’s city planning did not end after the first ten years, as Mahavamsa said. It continued and the Greek settlers came in the last two decades of his rule. The journey would have been easy. The sea route was well known and well used by then.

These Greek settlers were not second or third generation ‘Indo-Greeks’. They were first generation native Greeks, who had left Greece -including the parts of Macedonia and Ionia- only two decades before. They were, therefore, the first Europeans to visit Sri Lanka.
Merlin Peris observes that a foreign quarter in Anuradhapura so early on in Sri Lanka’s history shows that the Sinhala king was quick to respond to the Greek element in neighboring India. The Greeks were equally prompt in getting to Sri Lanka. The references to Sri Lanka in the writings of Onescritus, Megasthenes and Eratosthenes are dated to this time. Megasthenes who was in India as Greek ambassador to the Maurya court, would have had contact with the Greek settlers in Anuradhapura.

These Greeks would have brought a first- hand knowledge of Greek culture into Sri Lanka. A trace of this today is in the Greek myths that appear in the Mahavamsa. Merlin Peris says the Ummadacitta story is from the Greek myth of Danae, daughter of the king of Argos. The story of Vijaya is from Homer’s ‘Odyssey’. It also contains Argonautic myths. The Argonauts were a band of heroes in Greek mythology. Kelanitissa- Viharamaha Devi episode is taken from Danae and from the Andromeda story found in the legend of Perseus. The Mahavamsa story has been taken straight from the Greek one, not from any intermediate source. The flooding of Kelaniya and the marriage of Kelanitissa and Viharamaha Devi however are true. Subha saha Yasa story is found in Plato’s "Republic" and in the writings of Herodotus. It is also given in a papyrus dated to 2 CE, found In Egypt, which means the story may pre-date Herodotus. Merlin thinks the Mahavamsa writer may have known of the two Greek epics "Odyssey" and "Iliad". He further observes that the only history the Sinhala historians could have obtained during this period was that of Herodotus. India had no model history. They also seem to have heard of the Greek historian Xenophon( 430 – 354 BCE). William Knighton in his "History of Ceylon" (1845) observed that the manner in which king Kavantissa collected his army closely resembled the account given by Xenophon in his "Cyropaedia" of the way in which King Cyrus of Persia gathered up his army.

The second recorded visit of the Greeks took place when Yona bhikkus arrived from Alasanda to celebrate the completion of the Mahathupa by Dutugemunu (167-131 BCE). Merlin Peris says Alasanda was probably in Kabul valley. Kabul was under Greek rule at the time and, according to Mahavamsa, was devoutly Buddhist. It had ‘shone with yellow robes.’ Merlin Peris asserts that it is from the Kabul valley, not southeast India, that that the Greeks came to Anuradhapura. The Mahavamsa and the Mahavamsa tika do not explain who these Yona were. Both works assume that the reader already knows who the Yona were. This means that the Sinhalese would have been familiar with the Greeks even before they arrived for the chaitya ceremony. Perhaps there was a pocket of Greeks remaining in Anuradhapura.

Merlin Peris says that the considerable ‘Greek presence’ in India at the time of Dutugemunu ‘makes plausible their coming to Sri Lanka.’ King Dharmasoka had a large Greek population in his Empire. Two Asokan edicts in Greek were found in Kandahar. One was a Greek version of the XII and XIII rock edicts. It spoke of Asoka’s missions to various Greek ruled kingdoms, and mentions the Yonas and the people of Aparanta. These are the only Asokan edicts in a non-Indian language. They show that Buddhism had been preached in the Greek language, in India and abroad and that the Greek population in Kandahar outnumbered the Indians.

The Third Buddhist Council took place in India during Dharmasoka’s reign. When it ended, Venerable Moggaliputta sent out two missions directed at Greeks. One mission went to Yonarattha, ‘the country of the Yona’. The other mission, sent to Aparantaka, was led by ‘Dhamarakkita the Yona’. These Moggaliputta and Asoka missions would have been headed by Greeks or Greek- speaking monks and they would have preached in Greek. Merlin Peris suggests that the Greeks may have been the first Europeans to convert to Buddhism in India and that Greek may have been the first foreign language in which Buddhism was preached.

Source: srilankaguardian.org

MAHADHARMARAKSITA ~ THE GREEK PROTECTOR OF THE DHARMA

Mahadhammarakkhita (Sanskrit: Mahadharmaraksita, literally "Great protector of the Dharma") was a Greek (in Pali:"Yona", lit. "Ionian") Buddhist master, who lived during the 2nd century BCE, during the reign of the Indo-Greek king Menander.

In the Mahavamsa, a key Pali historical text, he is recorded as having travelled from “Alasandra” (thought to be Alexandria of the Caucasus, around 150 kilometers north of today's Kabul, or possibly Alexandria of the Arachosians), with 30,000 monks  for the dedication ceremony of the Maha Thupa ("Great stupa") at Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka, when it was completed shortly after the death of the Sri Lankan king Dutthagamani Abhaya (r. 161 - 137 BCE).
The Mahamvasa lists the congregations that visited Sri Lanka for the dedication of the Maha Thupa, explaining that:

"From Alasanda the city of the Yonas came the thera (elder) Yona Mahadhammarakkhita with thirty thousand bhikkhus." (Mahavamsa, XXIX)

This reference says a lot about the role of the Greeks in the Buddhist community of that era;Alexandria of the Caucasus or Alexandria of the Arachosians, cities under the control of the Greek king Menander, had a Buddhist monk population of possibly as many as 30,000, indicating a flourishing Buddhist culture under the Greeks.
The head of this Buddhist community was a Greek (Yona) Buddhist elder whose religious name was Mahadhammarakkhita ("Great protector of the Dharma), a fact that illustrates the involvement of Greeks in the development of the Buddhist faith, in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent.
They were able to travel freely south as far as Sri Lanka; this is probably evidence of some political stability along the west coast of the Indian subcontinent. It should be noted that during that time, the Shunga Empire was persecuting Buddhists in the East.
It is also separately established through another text, the Milinda Panha, and archeological evidence, that Menander himself ruled a vast empire in northern India, and that he became a Buddhist arhat. According to Buddhist tradition, he was a great benefactor of the Buddhist faith, along with Ashoka or the Kushan Kanishka.