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Comment by nuc1e0n | Hacker News Reader

Travellers from Asia journeyed to the Greco-Bactrian kingdom of Ghandara (whose name is a corruption of Alexandria) and took Buddhism back with them to the east. This is fictionalised in the story 'Journey to the West'. Nippon TV in Japan did a cool TV series adaption of this story that was dubbed into English and shown on kids TV in the UK as 'Monkey', which was quite popular back in the day. If you spend enough time wandering around the British Museum you learn all this stuff.

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Gandhara (not "Ghandara") is mentioned in the Behistun inscription of the Persian emperor Darius, from about two hundred years before Alexander, so it's clearly not "a corruption of Alexandria".

Oh really? Maybe that's wrong then. Is the name a transcription or a translation? What script were the records written in originally? Names can be retroactively applied, especially in translation. Looks like I've got some reading to do. Edit: Maybe I got confused between different folk etymologies for the name of the city of Kandahar.

From what I understand (and I could be wrong), Kandahar is the modern name of Gandhara.

That's what I thought as well, but clearly there's more debate there to be had than I realised. Was the city not founded by one of Alexander's generals or was it? Or ever called something like Iskanderha? I don't know.

Kandahar is a city; Gandhara was a kingdom. (But, yes, there is a theory that the name ["Kandahar"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kandahar) derives from Gandhara, as opposed to deriving from "Alexander" -- though it seems generally agreed that there was a city -- [Alexandria of Arachosia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandria_Arachosia) named after him built on that spot.)

> Nippon TV in Japan did a cool TV series adaption of this story that was dubbed into English and shown on kids TV in the UK as 'Monkey', which was quite popular back in the day.

Nah, HN readers might be more familiar with its anime adaptation, "Dragon Ball".

Interesting. I've not watched that show and didn't know it's the same story. I know the same graphic artist who worked on the design for the band Gorillaz also did idents based on this story for the Olympics in Beijing a few years back.

It's less an adaptation, more just loosely inspired by journey to the west (disclaimer: I have not read journey to the west)

And Journey to the West is a fairly modern book, only a few centuries old. It is based on many older folk tales of China (including many that weren't originally Chinese) and connects them with a framing story, a bit like Decameron or One Thousand and One Nights (Arabian Nights). Some of them had already been connected before the book was written.

Toriyama exercised a fair bit of artist license in his work. I am reasonably sure the original texts were more about hitting opponents with a big magical stick rather than Kamehamehas.

Or Starzinger, Saiyuki, The Monkey... there's a zillion anime adaptations (or rather, vaguely inspired stories).

It's kinda like Pinocchio, which you may find in Ergo Proxy or a thousand other stories.

> whose name is a corruption of Alexandria

No.

Gandhara finds its name in way older documents such as Mahabharata. The people of Gandhara were called Gandharva. According to Mahabharata, these were people skilled in archery, wars, and also fine arts.

I am not sure about the history, but I am sure the name doesn’t come from Alexandria.

How do we know that the Mahabharata wasn't changed some time after Big Al's "gap years to find himself"?

This sort of thing happened a lot with the Old Testament (despite being written down). I would be shocked if it didn't also happen with Mahabharata, which is famous for not having been written down (much).

There were (loosely) almost checksums for the oral transmission of the Sanskrit versions of the Mahabharata for ensuring consistency and accuracy.

Priests were highly trained in recitation and memorization and the oral texts were consistent across vast regions.

My source is vague memory but I think it was from JAB van Buitenen speaking about oral transmission and accuracy in the intros for either “The Bhagavadgita in the Mahabharata” or “The Mahabharata; Book of the Beginning”.

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