Iap,apeta from the Hebrew "an outlook hill," or rather from the Aramaic form 7734, whence also comes the Assyrian form Samirina.
Megasthenes draws a distinction between the Brahmans (Bpaxµ.aves) and the Sarmanae (Iap,u6.pat), from which some scholars have inferred that the Buddhist Sarmanas were a recognized class fifty years before the council of Asoka.