Menander (Milinda)
Indo-Greek king who ruled from Sagala (Sialkot). The Buddhist text Questions of Milinda records his debate with the monk Nagasena.
Menander, Milinda in Indian sources, was the greatest of the Indo-Greek kings, ruling in the second century BCE from Sagala, now Sialkot, a kingdom stretching from Kabul to the Punjab and perhaps beyond.
He is remembered above all from a Buddhist text, the Milindapanha, the Questions of Milinda, which records his long debates with the monk Nagasena on the nature of the self, karma and rebirth. In the text he is finally convinced and becomes a Buddhist; Plutarch says that when he died, cities disputed his ashes.
His coins, with his portrait and Greek and Kharoshthi inscriptions, are found across the Punjab. He is the clearest example of how Greek and Indian culture mixed in the north-west.
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A silver Indo-Greek drachm of Menander (c.160-145 BC) of the Kabul/Gandhara regionWikimedia Commons · National Museum Wales , Susie White, 2018-10-22 14:57:42 · CC BY ↗
Coin of MenanderBritish Museum, London · photo No machine-readable author provided. World Imaging assumed ( (Wikimedia Commons) ↗