Dharmarakṣita (Sanskrit, 'Protected by the Dharma')(Pali: Dhammarakkhita), was one of the missionaries sent by the Mauryan emperor Ashoka to proselytize Buddhism. He is described as being a Greek (Pali: Yona, lit. "Ionian") in the Mahavamsa, and his activities are indicative of some Hellenistic Greeks following Buddhism during its early centuries. Greek communities had been present in neighbouring Bactria and in northwestern India since the time of the conquests of Alexander the Great around 323 BCE, and developed into the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom and the Indo-Greek Kingdom until the end of the 1st century BCE. Greeks were generally described in ancient times throughout the Classical world as "Yona", "Yonaka", "Yojanas" or "Yavanas", lit. “Ionians". They were ardent recipients of Buddhism and the example of Dharmarakṣita indicates that they even took an active role in spreading Buddhism as leading missionaries. A Greek Buddhist missionary The efforts of Emperor Ashoka to spread the Buddhist faith are described in the Edicts of Ashoka carved during his reign on stone pillars and cave walls: "Here in the king's domain among the Greeks, the Kambojas, the Nabhakas, the Nabhapamkits, the Bhojas, the Pitinikas, the Andhras and the Palidas, everywhere people are following Beloved-of-the-Gods' instructions in Dhamma." Rock Edict Nb13 (S. Dhammika) Ashoka also claimed to have sent emissaries beyond his borders, as far as the Greek kings of the Mediterranean: "Now it is conquest by Dhamma that Beloved-of-the-Gods considers to be the best conquest. And it (conquest by Dhamma) has been won here, on the borders, even six hundred yojanas 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." Rock Edict Nb13 (S. Dhammika) Dharmaraksita is then described in important Buddhist Pali historical texts, the Dīpavaṃsa and the Mahāvaṃsa, as being a Greek Buddhist missionary, in charge of propagating the faith to the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent. "When the thera Moggaliputta, the illuminator of the religion of the Conqueror, had brought the (third) council to an end (…) he sent forth theras, one here and one there: The thera Mahyantika he sent to Kasmira and Gandhara, The thera, Mahadeva he sent to Mahisamandala. To Vanavasa be sent the thera named Rakkhita, and to Aparantaka (he sent) the Yona named Dhammarakkhita; to Maharattha (he sent) the thera named Mahadhammarakkhita, but the