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388 POLITICAL HISTORY OF ANCIENT INDIA According to the Buddhist tradition recorded in the Milinda-pañho, Milinda or Menander 'flourished “500 years," i.e., not earlier than the fifth century after the Parinirvana, parinibbānato pañichavassa sate atilckante ete upajjissanti.2 This tradition points to a date not earlier than the period 144-44 B.C. according to Ceylonese reckoning, or 86 B.C.-14 A.D. according to Cantonese tradition, for Menander. Thus both according to numismatic evidence and literary tradition Menander could not have been the Indo-Greek_contemporary of Pushyamitra. It is Demetrios who should, therefore, be identified with the Yavana invader referred to by Patañjali and Kālidāsa, one of whose armies was defeated by Prince Vasumitra.3
The Aśvamedha Sacrifices. After the victorious wars with Vidarbha (Berar) and the Yavanas Pushyamnitra completed the performance of two horse-sacrifices. These sacrifices are regarded by some scholars as marking an early stage in the Brāhmanical reaction which was fully developed five centuries later in the time of Samudra Gupta and his successors.
1 Cf. the interpretation of somewhat similar chronological data by Franke and Fleet (JRAS, 1914, 400-1); and Smith EHI, 3rd edition, 328.
2 Trenckner, the Milinda-pañho, p. 3. Tarn is not quite right in saying (134 n) that Apollodorus makes Menander contemporary with Demetrios, Trogus with Apollodotos, and some coin indications (CHI, 551) with Eukratides. Strabo following Apollodorus and possibly other authorities simply says that extensive Bactrian conquests in the Indian interior were achieved partly by Menander and partly by Demetrios. It is nowhere clearly stated that the two conquerors were contemporaries. The book of Trogus on which another conclusion is based, is lost. Coin indications are not clear enough. E.g. the imitation of certain coins of Demetrios by Maues does not prove chronological proximity.
3 S. Konow (Acta Orientalia, 1. 35) points out that there is no evidence that Menander transgressed the river Yamunā, and that Demetrios was the ruler who besieged Sāketa and Madhyamikā. In IHQ, 1929, p. 403, Mr. R. P. Chanda regards Strabo's attribution of the Indian conquests to Demetrios as doubtful. But the cities in the Pañjāb and the Lower Indus Valley named after Demetrios and possibly his father leave no room for doubt that Strabo is right.
