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Menander I ( also known as Milinda in Sanskrit, Pali), was one of the Greek kings of the Indo-Greek Kingdom in northern India from 160 to 135 BC.
A renowned Indo-Greek king
His territories covered the eastern dominions of the divided Greek empire of Bactria and extended to the modern Pakistan province of Punjab with diffuse tributaries to the south and east.
Silver
drachm of
Menander I (160-135 BC).
Obv: Greek legend, BASILEOS SOTHROS MENANDROY lit. "Saviour King Menander".
Rev: Kharosthi legend.
Athena advancing right, with thunderbolt and shield.
His capital is supposed to have been Sagala, a very properous city in northern Punjab (today Sialkot).
He is one of the few Bactrian kings mentioned by Greek authors, among them Apollodotus of Artemita, who claim that he was an even greater conqueror than Alexander the Great. Strabo (XI.II.I) says Menander was one of the two Bactrian kings who extended their power farthest into India, possibly as far as Pataliputra, which at least had been put under siege by the Indo-Greeks.
Exaggerations aside, it could be ascertained that his reign was long and successful. Generous findings of coins testify to the prosperity and extension of his empire, but the boundaries of his reign are vague; between 155 BC and 80 BC.
Guesses among historians are that he was either a nephew or a former general of the Greco-Bactrian king Demetrius, but his predecessor in Bactria seems to have been the king Apollodotus.
Menander and Buddhism
Menander was the first Bactrian king to strike coins with legends in both Greek and Sanskrit; according to tradition he also embraced the Buddhist faith, as described in the Milinda Pańha, a classical Pali Buddhist text on the discussions between Milinda and the Buddhist sage Nāgasena.
In the Milindanpanha, Menander is introduced as "king of the city of Sâgala in India, Milinda by name, learned, eloquent, wise, and able; and a faithful observer, and that at the right time, of all the various acts of devotion and ceremony enjoined by his own sacred hymns concerning things past, present, and to come. Many were the arts and sciences he knew--holy tradition and secular law; the Sânkhya, Yoga, Nyâya, and Vaisheshika systems of philosophy; arithmetic; music; medicine; the four Vedas, the Purânas, and the Itihâsas; astronomy, magic, causation, and spells; the art of war; poetry; conveyancing in a word, the whole nineteen. As a disputant he was hard to equal, harder still to overcome; the acknowledged superior of all the founders of the various schools of thought. And as in wisdom so in strength of body, swiftness, and valour there was found none equal to Milinda in all India. He was rich too, mighty in wealth and prosperity, and the number of his armed hosts knew no end." (The Questions of King Milinda, Translation by T. W. Rhys Davids, 1890).
Buddhist tradition relates that Menander handed over his kingdom to his son and retired from the world. However, according to Plutarch (Praec. reip. ger. 28, 6), he died in camp while on campaign, and all his subject towns disputed about the honour of his burial, ultimately sharing his ashes among them and placing them in stuppas.
His empire survived him in a fragmented manner until the last Greek king Hermaeus disappeared around 10 A.D.
See also
Indo-Greek Kingdom
Greco-Buddhism
Indo-Scythians
External links:
Coins of King Menander (http://images.google.co.jp/images?q=menander%20coins&hl=ja&lr=&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi)
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