| The
original name of Saurashtra was Kushavrata. The place where the Yadavas founded Dwarka was
originally called Kushasthali.2 The Phoenicians also called themselves the sons of Kusha.3
An old legend connects Dwarka with Punyajanas which may conceivably be a variant of Pani4
or Panik of the Vedas or the Phoinix or the Phoinikes of the Greeks, known in history as
Phoenicians. Long before their settlement in Greece,
the Phoenicians were mariners. Their original home was on the Erythrxan Sea which is
identified with the Persian Gulf or the Arabian Sea. These Pretero Phoenicians, the sons
of Kusha, can therefore be taken to have made an early settlement at Kushasthali.
2 Hari 1. 11. 4.
3 Waddell, Makers of Civilization, p. 80.
4 Max Muller-Chips from a German Workshop, ii, 65. |
