The Significance of Milindapanha
Posted in BA International Program, Final Year 2012, MCU Assignment
Venerable Mangala Priya
Bhikkhu
Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya
University
Buddhist Studies, Final
Year BA 2012.
Introduction
The Milindapanha is one of the most popular and
authoritative works of pali Buddhist literature.[1]
According to T.W. Rhys David’s Milindapanha is undoubtedly the masterpiece of Indian
point of view that had then been produced in any country.[2]
Horner at his book of Milinda’s questions provides a table of passages in the
great Buddhist commentator acariya Buddhaghosa’s work cited Milindapanha as an
authority in his visuddhimagga and his commentaries to the pali canon.[3]
Milindapanha has usually been added in suttanta pitaka itself in Burmese Theravada
tradition as a part of khuddaka nikaya.
The
Significance of Milindapanha
Although other Buddhist countries seems quite but in
their land where pali tripitaka reigns supreme, the milindapanha stands just
behind it as a weighty textual source for solving knotty problems of doctrine
and as a gem of classical pali literature. Perhaps it is ironical that when Milindapanha
has achieved an important place of such eminence in the Theravada Buddhist
tradition, its origins
may go back well but to the old Theravada schools. During sojourn in middle India but to non-Theravada schools adhering to essentially the same doctrine and discipline as thought in pali canon.
may go back well but to the old Theravada schools. During sojourn in middle India but to non-Theravada schools adhering to essentially the same doctrine and discipline as thought in pali canon.
According to Karl. H. Potter milindapanha is the
most popular early abhidhamma treatise which has been edited and translated
many times within sarvastivada, Theravada and other sects of early Buddhism. It
recounts a discussion between a Buddhist monk named Nagasena and King Milinda
who is assumed to be Menandros, an indo-Greek king who ruled somewhere around
155-130 BC in Siyalkot in the area of Punjab in Northern India. It is available
in Chinese in several versions as well as in Pali, Sanskrit and Prakrit.
Translations into English have also been published by Nyanatiloka in 1919 and
Irene Blew Horner in 1963-64. It also has been translated into German, French
and Dutch among western language.
The
Milindapanha is a famous work
of Buddhist literature perhaps compiled in the first century B.C with good
reasons. It demonstrates Buddhist doctrine in a very attractive and memorable
form as a dialogue between a Greek king, Milinda, who plays the ‘Devil’s
Advocate’ and a Buddhist sage, Nàgasena. The topics covered mostly the common
questions asked by Westerners such as “If there is no soul, what is it that is
reborn?” and “If there is no soul, who is talking to you now?”[4] It
starts with the historical background against which the dialogues took place,
indicating the meeting of two great cultures, that of ancient Greece and the
Buddhism of the Indus valley, which was a legacy of the great Emperor Asoka. The
style of the Milinda Panha is
very much like a Platonic dialogue, Nàgasena playing the part of Socrates and
winning over King Milinda to the Buddhist viewpoint by his sound reasoning and
his fitting similes. The book represents Southern Buddhism at an advanced stage
of development. While difficult questions are addressed here, Milinda
makes fascinating reading, as many of the issues are common to all religions.
Milindapanha
has its roots in Sarvastivada School of early Buddhism as it is known to have
flourished in Gandhara and Kashmir during the period to which Milindapanha
usually assigned.[5]
Milindapanha has nothing to do with Sectarians but most it articulates the
common Buddhist program that unites the various early Schools. According to
Rhys David’s and other scholars with its geographical setting claims that
Milindapanha was originally written in Sanskrit or in some North Indian
Prakrit. The identity of the author remains unknown but the work has been
preserved in Chinese translation under the title “sutra of the bhikkhu
Nagasena” as a royal philosopher who has been demolishing Milinda appears first
in the work with refutations, the tenets of the different schools of Indian
religious thought.[6]
In
the dialogues Milinda poses the questions and Nagasena replies. Until now it
remains an open question whether the historical Menander ever participated in
discussions concerning Buddhism, let alone whether dialogues recorded in our
text are to some degree veridical transcriptions of real discussions between a
Greek ruler and an Indian Bhikkhu. Dialogue between Milinda and Nagasena was to
serve as the scenario for an attempt to unravel in a dramatic and entertaining
manner, the numerous doctrinal and textual problems that Buddhist thinkers has
run up against in their encounter with representatives of another
philosophically sophisticated culture that of Hellenistic Greece.
As
there is no much record about Nagasena it can be assumed that he was invented
by the author for didactic purposes to represent the Buddhist point of view in
its encounter with challenging queries from that alien but intellectually
advanced cultural sphere which gave birth to Socrates, plato and Aristotle.
Milindapanha states that the book contains 262 questions though in the editions
only 236 are available.[7]
Milindapanha covers a
vast range of doctrinal topics. Milindapanha which have canonical authority
cannot be traced in the pali canon that we now possess. Even Horner has
discussed this problem at length in the introduction to her translation and she
raised the possibility that the author, though he drew so extensively from the
pali pitakas, may not have been together unacquainted with Sarvastivada
literature and that this is where some at any rate of the untraced prose and
verse passages may be found eventually.[8]
According to the Milinda Panha (I 32-35), the monk Nagasena,
before his encounter with Menander,
was once a student of Dharmaraksita and learnt Buddhism and reached enlightenment
as an arahat
under his guidance in Pataliputra.[9]
According to tradition, Menander embraced the Buddhist
faith, as described in the Milinda Panha
after the discussions with Venerable Nagasena. "May the venerable Nâgasena
accept me as a supporter of the faith, as a true convert from to-day onwards as
long as life shall last"[10]
all the kings after Menander who are recorded to have ruled in Gandhara
display Buddhist symbolism in one form or another. Both because of his
conversion and because of his unequaled territorial expansion, Menander may
have contributed to the expansion of Buddhism in Central Asia. Although the
spread of Buddhism to Central Asia and Northern Asia is usually associated with
the Kushans,
a century or two later, there is a possibility that it may have been introduced
in those areas from Gandhara
"even earlier, during the time of Demetrius and Menander"
It is generally
accepted by scholars that the work is composite, with additions made over some
time. In support of this, it is noted that the Chinese versions of the work are
substantially shorter.[11]
The oldest manuscript of the Pali text was copied in 1495 CE. Based on
references within the text itself, significant sections of the text are lost,
making Mil the only Pali text known to have been passed down as incomplete.[12]
The book is included in the inscriptions of the Canon approved by the Burmese Fifth Council
and the printed edition of the Sixth Council
text. Rhys David’s says it is the greatest work of
classical Indian prose, though Moritz Winternitz says this is true only of the
earlier parts.[13]
Presently many scholars have translated the book into English
and some of those books are as follows: Questions of King Milinda, tr T. W.
Rhys Davids, Sacred Books of the East, Milinda's Questions, tr I. B. Horner,
Pesala, Bhikkhu (ed.), The Debate of King Milinda: An Abridgement of the
Milindapanha, and Mendis, N.K.G. (ed.), The Questions of King Milinda: An
Abridgement of the Milindapanha. In addition Both Rhys Davids' original work
and Pesala's abridged edition are now available electronically.
Milindapanha has seven
chapters. It has been categorized in Following ways: in chapter one. The
narrative setting has been given, where and how Milinda and Venerable Nagasena
met each other is mentioned. Then the same chapter recalls the karmic
predecessors of the two, who were once brethen in the Buddha’s dispensation.
One of them born as Milinda, king of sagala, who knew various arts and sciences
and was formidable debater, one day went forth and asked for someone to discuss
with. Mahasena, who predicted his own reincarnation as Nagasena, son of
Sonuttara. Nagasena learned all there was to learn from his Brahmin father, and
then retired to meditate, where he was found by Rohana who taught him the
Abhidhamma. Having mastered abhidhammapitaka well that he recited it completely
within a new threefold division of its contents, he was sent through assagutta
to Pataliputra where he learned the other two Pitakas and became a perfected
being by practice. Eventually king Milinda found Nagasena out and was able to
recognize him without an introduction and then the discussion began.
Chapter two is about
the questions about Characteristic marks. Here king Milinda asked venerable
Nagasena’s Name then Nagasena identified himself but added that his name is a
mere designation and that there is no personality indicated by it. Nagasena
responded by analyzing a chariot in a similar fashion. The chariot is not the
axle, not the wheels, not the spokes, etc. He solved the puzzle by pointing out
that though the chariot is not any of those things, still it is in virtue of
all the aspects mentioned that thing is called a ‘Chariot’ and likewise it is
because of the co-existence of the various elements Milinda has reviewed that
he called ‘Nagasena’ a being.
It also discussed about
the knowledge and wisdom. They are synonyms. Just as the villager puts out a
fire in his house with five water pots placed therefore the purpose and the
fire stays out without continued application of the water, so the disciplined
man puts out the fire of the defilements with the five faculties of faith,
energy, mindfulness, concentration, and insight and the sinfulness does not
return. Same chapter talks about ignorance which is the root of the notion of
the beginning point of time since the temporal series is infinite.
Chapter three: Removal
of difficulties, talks about the five senses produced by many acts, not just
one since they arise from many distinct seeds and differences among human
beings arise from differences in Karmic seeds.
It also talks about the deeds committed by a psychophysical complex
follow it and never leave it, but they cannot be perceived, any more than one
can perceive the fruit on a tree that has not yet produced it. It also
discusses about the memory arising in sixteen ways, by personal experience, by
outward aid, by the impression made by the greatness of some occasion, by the
impression made by joy, by the impression made by sadness, from similarity of
appearance, from difference of appearance, from someone’s speaking, from a
sign, from an effort, by calculation, by arithmetic, by learning by heart, by
meditation, by consulting a book.
Chapter Four: The
solving of Dilemmas, here King Milinda resolved to get Nagasena to solve a
number of puzzles concerning Buddhist thought and undertook the eightfold vow
for seven days, after which he asked Nagasena to discuss with him privately in
a secluded place suitable for a monk. Then King Milinda asked Why Buddha didn’t
answer Malunkyaputra’s question? Then Nagasena answered his question saying
that there is no purpose in answering those questions that is why Buddha didn’t
answer them.
The final Chapter Seven
demonstrate the good qualities which a monk must have in order to become a
perfected being are listed in similes. So there is one quality ‘of the Donkey’
that he does not remain lying down long. Five qualities ‘of a cock’ who goes to
bed early, gets up early, is strenuous in scratching the earth, is blind to
distractions, and does not leave home even though buffeted about, etc. some 67
different similes are thus employed. This concluded the questions posed by the
king, who pronounced himself satisfied with Nagasena’s answers and a convert to
the Buddhist Faith. The king eventually handed over the kingdom to his son and
became a perfected being.
The effectiveness of Milindapanha answers is
enhanced by the numerous similes and analogies that are included within them.
Although there is no doubt that the two protagonists of the Milindapanha really
existed and that they held discussions with each other, it is not a verbatim
record of the discussions as such but a work of literature. Despite this, it
may well have captured something of the personalities of the two men. Nagasena
comes across as dignified but accessible, confident of his abilities to
convince, intellectually alert, learned and witty. Milinda on the other hand,
appears to be appears to be interested in Buddhism but by no means prepared to
accept its tenets without good reasons. The Milindapanha is the most important
book of Theravada Buddhist doctrine outside the Pali Tipitaka and is still
widely studied.[14]
The
extensive study by considerable value, we can infer that Greece and India
differences between eastern and western cultures represented. It can be used as
Greece and Indian and Chinese thought the importance of information exchange
can be said that cultural exchanges in the history of Greece and India an
important historical book. Milindapanha has its unique academic value. However
the value of Mahayana and Theravada point of view Milindapanha form of
dialogue, through text vividly describes about the origin, without me, karma, incarnation,
nirvana and other basic ideas of Buddhism. The author is not known but almost
certainly he used to live in Northwestern India because he didn’t mention the
countryside in the southern Indian River Ganga.
Menander
was probably the Indo-Greek king who was converted to Buddhism by the holy man
Nagasena after a prolonged and intelligent discussion, which has been recorded
in the Milinda-panha. The style may have been influenced by Plato’s dialogues.
The wheel engraved on some of Menander’s coins is probably connected with
Buddhism, and Plutarch statement that when Menander died his earthly remains
were divided equally between the cities of his kingdom and that monuments,
possibly stupas (Buddhist commemorative monuments), were to be erected to
enshrine them indicates that he had probably become a Buddhist.[15] From
the conversations that occur between Milinda considered the purana kassapa,
Makkhali Gosala and several other sages, it was obvious that the opening story
in this essay was fabricated by the author because the hermit sages were
contemporary with the Buddha. this story is based on Samannaphala Sutta of Digha
Nikaya but there is one noteworthy difference in the samannaphala sutta that
prince Ajatasatthu went to visit the Buddha but couldn’t recognize Him while
the introduction of Milindapaha, king Milinda said about Nagasena 'No need to
show him to me'. So king Milinda was higher than the prince Ajatasatthu.
According
to Theravada classic records, there were three hundred and four debates between
king Milinda and Nagasena but there are only two hundred sixty two are
recorded. By using the debate the manner in which the structure of Buddhist
scriptures in general are rare, particularly by the special emphasis on the
wisdom in the liberation of important status and role.[16]
Conclusion
For
the understanding of the original Indian Buddhism, the exchange of ideas
between India and Greece has an important significance. I suppose that this
debate conducted in Greek Bactria but later translated into Pali and Sanskrit. In
the Pali canon said that the conversation between king Milinda and Nagasena
occurred 500 years after the Buddha’s Parinibbana. Even T.W.Rhys Davids, a leading
translator to Pali scriptures, considers that this is a very good book. "I
dare to say that 'Question of King Milinda' is clearly a major work of prose
India and viewed from a library point really is the best book in its class, the
best ever produced in any country too."[17]
Bibliography
1.
Bhikkhu
Pesala, ‘The Debate of King Milinda’Published by Inward Path, Penang, Malaysia,
1995.
2.
Horner,
‘Milinda’s Questions.
4.
Moragollagama
Uparathana, Introduction to Pali Tripitaka, academia.edu, http://sjp-lk.academia.edu/moragollagamauparathana/Papers/431637/Introduction_to_Pali_Tripitaka
5.
N.k.G.
Mendis, ‘The Question of King Milinda’, Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy, Sri
Lanka, 1993.
6.
T.W.Rhys
Davids, ‘The Questions of King Milinda’
8.
http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/dharmadata/fdd66.htm
9.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/374659/Menander
10.
Rhys Dvadids, Questions of King Milinda.
[1] N.k.G. Mendis, ‘The Question of
King Milinda’, Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy, Sri Lanka, 1993, p. 01.
[2] T.W.Rhys Davids, ‘The Questions
of King Milinda’, p. xiviii.
[3] Horner, ‘Milinda’s Questions’,
p.xi
[4] Bhikkhu Pesala,
‘The Debate of King Milinda’Published by Inward Path, Penang, Malaysia, 1995,
p. overview.
[5] N.k.G. Mendis, ‘The Question of
King Milinda’, Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy, Sri Lanka, 1993, p. 02
[6] Ibid, P. 03
[7] Ibid, P. 07
[8] Horner, P.XVII, Ibid, P. 13.
[11] According to Hinüber (2000), p.
83, para. 173, the first Chinese translation is believed to date from the 3rd
century and is currently lost; a second Chinese translation, known as
"Nagasena-bhiksu-sutra," (那先比丘經)
dates from the 4th century. The extant second translation is "much
shorter" that the current Pali-language Mil.
[12] Hinuber (2000), p. 85, para.
178.
[13] Rhys Davids (1890, 1894), p.
xlviii, writes: "[T]he 'Questions of Milinda' is undoubtedly the
masterpiece of Indian prose, and indeed is the best book of its class, from a
literary point of view, that had then been produced in any country."
[14] Reference: http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/dharmadata/fdd66.htm
[15]
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/374659/Menander
[16] moragollagama uparathana,
Introduction to Pali Tripitaka, academia.edu,
http://sjp-lk.academia.edu/moragollagamauparathana/Papers/431637/Introduction_to_Pali_Tripitaka
[17] Rhys Dvadids, Questions of King
Milinda, pxi.
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