[gothic-l] Goths in India, again.

[Brian Gendler]

      Hallo again folks...
   While researching into the question of "Irila of the gatas," I ran
through an article I had copied out of General Linguistics (30, 1990,
pp. 108-125) by Marvin Taylor. The article is called "The Etymology of
the Germanic Tribal Name Eruli." I had hoped to find an example of this
suppossed Gothic name "Irila." I did not find it, but I hit both the
jackpot and a stone wall in the same paragraph. I will quote it here. 
   "In 1912 Konow drew attention to a Prakrit inscription from the
mid-second centruy in Junnar (Poona), India, recording a donation of
temple cisterns from a certain Irila, who is identified as a 'westerner'
(yavana, literally 'Ionian') and also as a gata. A rich literature grew
up around this supposed Goth/Erulian, but Wüst (1961) has conclusively
rejected the identification of any aspect of the inscription as Germanic."
     The reference listed reads as follows:
   Wüst, Walther. 1961. Goten in Indien? Ein Forschungsbericht zur
mittelindoarischen Epigraphik. Franz Altheim, Geschichte der Hunnen.
Vol. 3. Berlin: de Gruyter. 141-89. (Selbstanzeige AdA 73 [1961].45-47.) 
   Even if I can get my hands on this, It will do me little good, as my
German is not nearly sufficient to read an article of the sort reliably.
Bertil had a very valid point about needing to know German to study this
stuff. I am going to try to find it anyway, but I hope I can convince
one of the members here with a better grasp on German to follow that lead.
   Unfortunately, Taylor doesn't reference any of this "rich
literature," apparently because he believes it rendered irrelevant by
Wüst, but I would like to see it anyway. You never know who to believe,
and I never trust a footnote I can't check. 
                          Gendler.

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