Questions of King Milinda Part 01

Author(s): T W Rhys Davids
Publisher: Oxford

Page 26

INTRODUCTION.
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part of the second century B.C., probably from about 140 to about 115, or even 110 B.C. His fame extended, as did that of no other Baktrian king, to the West, and he is the only Baktrian Greek king who has been remembered in India. Our author makes him say, incidentally ?, that he was born at Kalasi in Alasanda (=Alexandria), a name given to an island presumably in the Indus, And, as was referred to above, Plutarch has preserved the tradition that he died in camp, in a campaign against the Indians in the valley of the Ganges.
[It is interesting to point out, in this connection, that the town (gâma) of Kalasi has not been found mentioned elsewhere. Now among the very numerous coins of the Baktrian kings there is one, and only one, giving in the legend, not the name of a king, but the name of a city, the city of Karisi. As this coin was struck about 180 B.C. by Eukratides, who was probably the first of these kings to obtain a settlement on the banks of the Indus, it is possible that the two names, one in the Pâli form (or. more probably in the form of the dialect used by our author), the other in the local form, are identical; and that the coin was struck in commemoration of the fact of the Greeks having reached the Indus. If that be so, then that they gave the name Alasanda (Alexandria) to the island on which the town was built, and not to the town itself, seems to show that the town was not founded by them, but was already an important place when they took it.]
Beyond this all is conjecture. When our author says that Milinda was converted to Buddhism, he may be either relating an actual tradition, or he may be inventing for his own purposes. There is nothing inherently impossible, or even improbable, in the story. We know that all the Baktrians, kings and people alike, eventually became
1 See the chronological table in the Introduction to Professor Gardner's work, quoted below.
* See the translation below of III, 7, 5. * See p. 430 of the Pâli text.
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