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INTRODUCTION.
The work of which a translation is here, for the first time, presented to the English reading public, has had a strange and interesting history. Written in Northern India, at or a little after the beginning of the Christian era, and either in Sanskrit itself or in some North Indian Prakrit, it has been entirely lost in the land of its origin, and (so far as is at present known) is not extant in any of the homes of the various sects and schools of the Buddhists, except only in Ceylon, and in those countries which have derived their Buddhism from Ceylon. It is true that General Cunningham says that the name of Milinda 'is still famous in all Buddhist countries.' But he is here drawing a very wide conclusion from an isolated fact. For in his note he refers only to Hardy, who is good evidence for Ceylon, but who does not even say that the 'Milinda' was known elsewhere.
Preserved there, and translated at a very early date into Pâli, it has become, in its southern home, a book of standard authority, is put into the hands of those who have begun to doubt the cardinal points of Buddhist doctrine, has been long a popular work in its Pali form, has been translated into Simhalese, and occupies a unique position, second only to the Pali Pitakas (and perhaps also to the celebrated work of Buddhaghosa, the 'Path of Purity'). From Ceylon it has been transferred. in its Pali form. to both Burma and Siam, and in those countries also it enjoys so high a repute, that it has been commented on (if not translated). It is not merely the only work composed among the Northern Buddhists which is regarded with reverence by the orthodox Buddhists of the southern
1 In his 'Ancient Geography of India,' p. 186.
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