Milinda Panha

The work

The text presents Menander — Milinda in Pali — as a formidable questioner who has defeated every teacher he has debated, and Nagasena as the monk who answers him. The dialogue moves through the difficult points of doctrine: rebirth without a self, the nature of the person, karma, merit, the status of nirvana, and the apparent contradictions in the canon.

Its most famous passage is the chariot simile. Asked his name, Nagasena replies that the name denotes no permanent entity, and demonstrates by asking what the king's chariot is — not the wheels, axle, pole or frame, nor all of them collected, nor anything apart from them, yet the word chariot is not empty of use. The person is the same: a designation for a functioning assemblage, not a thing.

Historical setting

Menander was a real Indo-Greek king of the second century BCE ruling in the north-west, known from coins found across a wide area and from Greek and Indian references. That a Greek ruler in India engaged seriously with Buddhist teachers is not implausible, and Plutarch records that his remains were divided among cities in the manner of a Buddhist relic distribution.

Whether the dialogue records an actual exchange is another matter. The text as it stands is composite, with later strata, and its literary form is a device.

Standing

The Milinda Panha is not canonical in the Pali tradition of Sri Lanka but is included in the canon in Burma. Its authority is high everywhere in Theravada, and it is one of the works most often used to introduce Buddhist doctrine because it is structured as objections and answers rather than as exposition.

It is also a document of the Indo-Greek encounter, and one of the few places where that meeting can be seen in something other than coins and sculpture.