The conquest of the
Bactrian
kings are said to have been
carried to the south over the Hindu Kush into S.
carried to the south over the Hindu Kush into S.
Cambridge History of India - v1
Æ.
id.
: Indramitra.
Obv.
Indra seated on railing.
Rev.
in se, Idamitasa ; above,
three symbols.
5. Æ. Mathurā : Gomitra. Rev. Gomitasa. Standing figures; on either side, symbols.
6. Æ. id. : Brahmamitra. Rev. Brahmamitasa, Standing figure, with r. arm raised; on
either side, symbols.
7. Æ. id. : Hagāmasha. Obv. Horse to 1. Rev. Khatapasa Hagāmashasa Standing figure,
with r. , arm raised; on either side, symbols.
8. Æ. id. : Hagāna and Hagāmasha. Obv. Horse to l. Rev. Khatapāna Hcgānasa
Hagāmashasa; to r, thunderbolt.
9. Æ. id. : Rañjubula. Obr. The abhisheka of Lakshmi. Rev. Mahākhatapasa
Rājuvulasa. Standing figure ; on either side, symbol.
10. Æ. id. : Çodāsa. Obv. Indistinct, probably as on no. 9. Rev. Mahākhatapasn putasa
Khatapasa Codāsasa Type as on no. 9.
11. Æ. Ayodhyā: Āryamitra, Obv. Peacock to r. facing tree, Rev. in incuse, Āy.
yamitasa, Humped bull to ). facing post.
12. Æ. id. : Mūladeva, Obv, Mūladevasa, Elephant to ). facing symbol. Rev. Wreath ;
above, symbel ; below, snake.
13. Æ. Rājanya Janapada, Obv. Humped bull to 1. Rev. Rājanya-jana padasa.
Standing figure.
14. R. Udumbara : Dharāghosha, Obv. Mahadevasa rano Dharaghoshasa Odum.
barisa ;r. , tree within railing ; 1. , trident battle-axe. Rev. Similar legend
in Kharoshthi characters. Viçvamitra standing, with r. hand raised ; ac-
ross field, Viçpa-mitra in Kharoshthi characters,
15. R. Çaka : Azilises. Rev. (Kh. ) Maharajasa rajatirajasa mahatasa Ayilishasa,
One of the Dioscuri standing.
1 All the coin-legends in this Plate are in Brāhmi, except when 'Kharoshthi'
is specially indicated.
;
.
9
## p. 486 (#524) ############################################
486
INDIAN NATIVE STATES
16. R. Kuninda : Amogbabhūti, Obr. Raño Kuņimdasa Amoghabhūtisa Maha.
rajasa. Deer to r. facing female figure ; above, symbol ; below, chaitya.
Rev. Similar legend in Kharoshthi characters. Chaitya surmounted by
nandipada ;r. , tree within railing 1. , svastika and another symbol.
17 R. Almora : Çivadatta. Obr. Railing with symbols between the posts. Rer.
Sivadatasa. Type uncertain (symbol or letter ? ); in margin, deer and tree
within railing.
18. Æ. Ujjayini. Obv. Elephant to r. Rer. Ujeni (ye] ; above, a hand.
19. Æ. id. Obr. Three-headed standing figure. Rev. The symbol usually found on
coins of Ujjayini.
## p. 487 (#525) ############################################
CHAPTER XXII
THE SUCCESSORS OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT
The disintegration of the Maurya empire was followed by foreign
invasions. Now that the unifying power was removed, the frontiers could
no longer be held securely ; and the history of N. W. India becomes for
many centuries the record of successive conquerors who came along the
coutes which led from Bactria (N. Afghanistān) over the Hindu Kush into
the Kābul valley or from Ariāna (Seistān and Kandahār) over the Brāhūi
Mountains into Sind.
The first three of the series, who belong to the period before the
Christian era, are known in Indian literature and inscriptions as Yavanas
or Yonas (Greeks), Çakas or Sakas (Scythians), and Pahlavas (Parthians).
Like other invaders they are regarded by the Sanskrit law-books and epics
as degenerate Kshatriyas who had lost caste through their neglect of the
religious and social code, and they are supposed to be of Indian origin, the
descendants of Tarvasu : but their names alone are sufficient to prove
that
they were foreigners, and that they came into India from Bactria or from
Irān. -
The Yavanas are the launā of the Old Persian inscriptions of Darius,
which show that the Persians applied to all Greeks without distinction the
name of the Ionians of Asia Minor who were conquered by Cyrus in 545
B. C. Greek soldiers and officials formed no unimportant element in the
administration of the empire of the Achaemenids ; and it is not surprising
therefore to find that the Greeks were known in India at a time when
a large portion of the North-West was still under Persian rule. The
occurrence of the word Yavana in a grammatical rule of Pāṇini (Iv, 1, 49)
is a certain indication that it had been adopted into Sanskrit before the
middle of the fourth century B. C. Its Prākrit equivalent, Yona, is used in
the inscriptions of Açoka to describe the Hellenic sovereigns of Egypt,
Cyrene, Macedonia, Epirus, and Syria ; and there can be little doubt that,
in all Indian documents earlier than the third century A. D. , the term denotes
a person of Greek descent, in spite of the fact that, like other foreign
487
## p. 488 (#526) ############################################
488
[CH.
SUCCESSORS OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT
settlers in India, many of the Yavanas had become Hinduised and had
adopted Indian names. At a later date, foreigners generally are classed as
Yavanas.
On three occasions have Yavana conquerors occupied the Kābul
valley, the North-Western Frontier Province, and large portions of the
Punjab. The earliest of these episodes, the Indian expedition of Alexander
the Great, has for more than twenty-two centuries been celebrated in
the Western world as one of the most amazing feats of arms in the whole
of history. Of its progress detailed accounts have been preserved by
Greek and Latin authors whose information was derived from the writings
of officers who themselves took part in the events which they describe ;
and in all these accounts Alexander himself is the great central figure.
No personage of the ancient world is better known ; but of this great
conqueror the records of India have preserved no certain trace ; he had
failed to reach the Midland Country, to which the literature of the period
is almost exclusively confined.
On the second occasion, Bactrian princes of the house of Euthy-
demus, whose conquests began c. 200 B. C. , succeeded in rivalling and
in surpassing the exploits of Alexander; and on the third occasion,
Eucratides, who had supplanted the family of Euthydemus in Bactria,
deprived it of its possessions in the Kābul valley and of a portion of
its territory in N. W. India, before 162 B. C. (p. 411).
No connected account of these two rival Yavana houses has been
preserved ; and practically nothing is known about the personal character
or achievements of the leaders who directed the affairs of a period which
must have been full of stirring events. A few isolated references in
literature, Greek, Roman and Indian, a single Indian inscription, and
the coin-legends of about thirty Greek kings and two Greek queens
supply the evidence which enables us to retrace very imperfectly a few
outlines in the history of the successors of Alexander the Great in India
during the second and first centuries B. C.
For about a century after the treaty of peace between Seleucus and
Chandragupta, c. 305 B. C. , and half a century after the foundation of
the Hellenic kingdom of Bactria, c. 250 B. C. , the southern limit of the
Yavana dominions was marked by the Hindu Kush. This broad band of
mountainous country, which separates the great river systems of the
Oxus and the Indus, was thus also the political boundary between Bactria
and Paropanisadae (the Kābul valley and the country north of the Kabul
river now known as Laghmān, Kohistān, and Kāfiristān). The mountain
barrier, although a formidable natural obstacle, has never effectually
prevented intercourse between the two fertile regions which it divides.
In all ages it has been traversed by migrating tribes, by military expedi-
## p. 489 (#527) ############################################
XXII]
DIRECTION OF INVASIONS
489
B. C.
-
tions, or by peaceful traders and pilgrims. It was crossed by Alexander,
from the Paropanisadae to Bactria, in fifteen days, and recrossed in
eleven days. The routes which led from Bactria over its passes converged
at a point near the present Chārikār where Alexander had founded the
city of Alexandria-under-the-Caucasus ; and, so long as this strategical
position could be held, invasion was impossible. But already in 206
the expedition of Antiochus the Great had shown that the
way was now open ; and the object lesson was not lost. Within a few
years, the Bactrian king Euthydemus and the princes of his house began
their triumphal career, the first stage of which was marked by the occupa-
tion of the Kābul valley.
From Kābul ancient routes led, on the one hand, into the provinces
of Ariāna - Aria (Herāt) on the west, and Arāchosia (Kandahār ) on the
south-west-and, on the other hand, into India through Gandhāra
(Peshāwar and Rāwalpindi) on the south-east. It is probable that the
Yavana power expanded in all these directions ; but it was in the
second or third of these-to Arachosia and to India –that its progress
was most marked. In these directions it must no doubt have followed the
routes once trodden by the armies of Alexander the Great. The full extent
of the Yavana conquests is described by Strabo (XI, 516) who quotes
Apollodorus of Artemita, the author of a history of Parthia which has
been lost :
The Greeks who occasioned its (Bactria’s) revolt became so powerful by means
of its fertility and advantages of the country that they became masters of Ariāna and
India, according to Apollodorus of Artemita. Their chiefs, particularly Menander (if
he really crossed the Hypanis to the east and reached Isamus), conquered more nations
than Alexander. These conquests were achieved partly by Menander, partly by
Demetrius, son of Euthydemus, king of the Bactrians. They got possession not only
of Patalene but of the kingdom of Saraostos, and Sigerdis, which constitute the
mainder of the coast. . . . . . They extended their empire even as far as the Seres and
Phryni. (Trans. M'Crindle, Ancient India, pp. 100-1. )
This passage is not without its difficulties ; but the general purport
is clear.
The conquest of the Bactrian kings are said to have been
carried to the south over the Hindu Kush into S. Afghānistān, the North-
Western Frontier Province, the Punjab, Sind, and Kāthiāwār, and to the
east over the Pāmirs into Chinese Turkestān. Unfortunately the Indian
limits of this extension are somewhat doubtful. The Hypanis must certainly
be intended for the Hyphasis (Beās), the eastern limit of Alexander's march;
and the Isamus most probably be intended for the Jumna. Patalene, the
1 (1) M ‘Crindle, The Invasion of Intl. by Alex. the Great (ed. 1896), p. 39 ; cf.
Holdich, Gates of India, pp. 87-8. (2) Itinerarium Alex. Mag. , 104, trans. M'Crindle,
Ancient India, p. 150.
re-
## p. 490 (#528) ############################################
490
[CH.
SUCCESSORS OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT
country of Patala, is the Indus delta. If the reading Saraostos, which has
been restored from the mss. , be correct, it must undoubtedly represent
Surāshtra (Kāthiāwār). The identification of Sigerdis is uncertain.
The Indian conquests, attributed by Apollodorus to Demetrius and
Menander, were ascribed by Trogus Pompeius (Justin, Prologue to Book
XLI) to Apollodotus and Menander. It seems probable that Apollodotus
and Menander, as well as Demetrius, belonged to the house of Euthydemus,
and that all these three princes were contemporary.
Some of the principal stages in the routes which the conquering
armies must have followed together with the distances between the stages,
are known from ancient authorities who derived their information from
the campaigns of Alexander and Seleucus. The most complete record
has been preserved by Pliny (vi, 17 (21). Many of his measurements are
no doubt correct, when due allowance is made for the necessary detours in
marches ; but, as others are evidently less exact, it will be more conve.
nient to summarise here such information as is supplied by the Imperial
Gazetteer, and to estimate other distances approximately by straight lines
drawn on the map (Railway and Canal Map of India, 1910).
From Chārikār (Alexandria-under-the-Caucasus) to Kābul (Ortospanum)
40 miles.
Kabu! (1) S. W. to Kandahār (Alexandria-among-the-Arachosians)
313 miles,
(2) S. to Indus delta, in a straight line
725
to S. Kathiāwār
1000
(3) E. to Jālālabād (Vagara)
101
Jatālabād E. to Peshāwār (Purushapura)
79
Stages on the royal road' which ran from Chārsadda,
16 iniles N. E, of Peshawar, to Patna, measured in a series
of straight lines. )
Chārasadda (Pushkalāvati) E. to Shāhdheri (Takshaçiiā)
80
Shāhdheri S. E. to Jhelum (Vicaea)
70
Jhelum S. E. to Siālkot (Çākala)
Siālkot S. E. to the Beās (Hyphasis)
The Beās S. E. to the Sutlej (Hesydrus) at Rūpar
85
the Sutlej S. to the Jumna (Yamunā) at Karnāl (old bed)
100
The second great Yavana invasion had thus passed beyond the
bounds of Alexander's Indian realm in two directions -- beyond the Beas
eastwards, and beyond the Indus delta southwards. But it is doubtful if
.
the successors of Demetrius. , Apollodotus, and Menander exercised any
permanent sway over the very wide expanse of territory indicated in
Strabo's Geography. It is more likely that most of the princes whose coins
we possess ruled over various kingdoms in the northern region of this
area, that is to say, in the Kābul valley, in the North-Western Frontier
Province, and in the northern districts of the Punjab. It is certain however
9
>
55
65
## p. 491 (#529) ############################################
XXII]
TWO ROYAL HOUSES OF YAVANAS
491
9
that the military expeditions of the Yavanas were by no means confined
within these limits. One such incursion which broke through the Delhi
passage and penetrated the Midland Country as far as Pātliputra (Patna) is
described in the Yuga Purāna, one of the chapters of the Gārgi Samhitā.
As in all Purānic literature, we find here a record of past events in
the conventional form of prophecy ; and however late the work may be in
its present form, there is no reason to doubt that, like the Purāņas generally,
it embodies a more ancient tradition. From the passage in question we
gather that 'the viciously valiant Greeks,' after reducing Sāketa (in Oudh),
the Pañchāla country in the doāb between the Jumna and Ganges), and
Mathurā (Muttra), reached Pushpapura (Pātaliputra); but that they did
not remain in the Midland Country because of a dreadful war among
themselves which broke out in their owncountryl- an evident allusion to
the internecine struggle between the houses of Euthydemus and Eucratides.
This account is to some extent supported and supplemented by two
examples given by the grammarian Patañjali (a contemporary of the Çunga
king, Pushyamitra) in illustration of the use of the imperfect tense to
denote an event which has recently happened— The Yavana was besieging
Sāketa ; the Yavana was besieging Madhyamikā' (Nagari, near Chitor
in Rājputāna)? . Such incursions brought the Yavanas into collision with
Çungas who were now the predominant power in the Midland Country ;
and Kālidāsa's drama, the Malavikagnimitra (Act v) preserves the memory
of a conflict on the banks of the river Sindhu (v. sup. p. 469), in which a
Yavana force was defeated in the reign of Pushyamitra by the king's
grandson Vasumitra.
It is clear that such warlike inroads were followed by no permanent,
occupation of the Midland Country, and that the period of military conquest,
in which they are ineffective episodes, belongs to the earlier part of the
second century B. C. , when the Yavana power was as yet undivided by
internecine strife. But the struggle of Greek with Greek was not long
delayed. The conflict between the rival houses in Bactria was decided in
favour of Eucratides ; and the third Yavana invasion under his leadership
deprived the princes of the house of Euthydemus of their dominions in
Kābul and Kandabār (the Paropanisadae and Arachosia) nd in N. W.
India (Gandhāra).
After about 162 B. C. there were therefore two royal houses of
Yavanas in India, and several branches of these houses were established in
different kingdoms and ruled at the same time. The names and titles of a
number of princes belonging to these families have been preserved by their
coins ; and a study of the coins enables us to recover a few facts in their
history.
1 Kern, Brhat Samhitā, p. 37.
2 Kielhorn, Ind. Ant. VII. p, 266.
## p. 492 (#530) ############################################
492
[сн.
SUCCESSORS OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT
In the first place it is evident that some members of both royal houses
ruled both to the north and to the south of the Hindu Kush. Their coins
belong to two distinct ard unmistakable classes. The coins struck in
Bactria are purely Greek in style, in language, and in weight. They are
the most noble examples of Greek art as applied to portraiture. No rivals
to the lifelike portraits of Euthydemus and Demetrius appeared in the
world until after the lapse of sixteen centuries, when the Greek spirit was
again kindled at the renaissance and manifested itself in the medals of the
great Italian artists. Contrasted with these, the coin-portraits executed to
the south of the Hindu Kush are lifeless and conventional. Between the
two styles of art there is a gulf fixed. Neither can be brought into relation
with the other. They are the work of different regions and the outcome of
different types of civilisation. In Bactria the Greeks ruled supreme amid
peoples of a lower culture. On the south of the mountain barrier, in the
Kābul valley and in India, they were brought into contact with a civilisation
which was in many respects as advanced as their own and even more
ancient-a civilisation in which, as in that of Ancient Egypt, religious and
social institutions bad long ago been stereotyped, and in which individual
effort in literature and art was no longer free but bound by centuries of
tradition. With this deeply-rooted civilisation the Greeks were forced to
make a compromise, and the results are seen in their bilingual coin-legends,
and in their adoption of the Indian (or Persian) weight-standard.
Differences less strongly marked, differences of degree rather than of
kind, are to be observed in the style of the coinages which the Yavanas
issued in the kingdoms south of the Hindu Kush. This diversity is no
doubt the result chiefly of varying local conditions. The Yavana dcminions
were very widely extended ; and the influence of Greek models was naturally
less strong in the more remote districts.
TAE HOUSE OF EUTHYDEMUS
The princes of the house of Euthydemus who reigned both in Bactria
and in kingdoms south of the Hindu Kush are Demetrius, Pantaleon,
Agathocles, and probably also Antimachus.
Of these Demetrius alone is known to the Greek historians, whose
statements as to his Indian conquests are confirmed, though scarcely
supplemented, by the evidence of coins. The district, in which his bilingual
square copper coins were struck, has not been determined ; and all that can
be said of his round coins, with types 'Elephant's head : Caduceus' and
Greek legend only, is that they were directly copied by the Çaka king
Maues, and that they must therefore have been in circulation in the lower
Kābul valley or in N. W, India (Pl. VI, 1, 2).
Chapter XVII, pp. 400-2
1
## p. 493 (#531) ############################################
ΧΧιι]
THE HOUSE OF EUTHYDEMUS
493
Pantaleon and Agathocles were undoubtedly closely connected, since
they struck coins which are identical in type and form. These were
borrowed from the earlier native currency which prevailed generally in the
Paropanisadae and Gandhāra. From a general consideration of the
provenance of their coins, which are found in Kābul, Ghazni, and Kandahār,
Cunningham concluded that Pantaleon and Agathocles must have ruled
over the Western Paropanisadae and Arachosia (N. Chr. , 1869, p. 41). They
would seem therefore to represent the south-western extension of the
Yavana power.
The commemorative medals struck by Antimachus show that he
claimed to be the successor of Diodotus and Euthydemus ; but there is
nothing to indicate his relation to Agathocles who makes the same claim.
The two princes may have been ruling at the same period in different king-
doms. From the recorded discoveries of the Indian coins of Antimachus,
Cunningham inferred that he ruled in the lower Kābul valley (the districts
of Jalālābād and Peshāwar). The reverse type in which the king is repre-
sented on a prancing horse and wearing a flat cap (kausia), as on the
obverse of the large silver Bactrian coins, is evidently a portrait ; and the
same type is continued on the coins of Philoxenus, Nicias, and Hippos-
tratus, who may have succeeded to the kingdom of Antimachus.
But if these four princes really ruled over the same kingdom, its
locality must be sought rather in the country of the Jhelum than in
the lower Kābul Valley. The coins of Philoxenus are found only to the east
of Jalālabad (B. M. Cat. , p. XXXVIII), and those of Nicias only in the Jhelum
District (Smith, Early Hist. of India. , 3rd ed. , p. 213); while the types
'Apollo : Tripod' which are also struck by Hippostratus seem undoubtedly,
in later times, to have been confined to the eastern districts of the Punjab
(p. 498). The occurrence of the type 'King on prancing horse' on the joint
coins of Hermaeus and Calliope may, as Cunningham suggested, indicate
the union of two royal houses.
The Bactrian and Indian coins of Antimachus with their types
*Poseidon' and 'Victory' must refer to a naval triumph ; and it is difficult
;
to explain the allusion except on the supposition that this king had
a victory on one of the great Indian rivers – the Indus or the
Jhelum.
Numismatists usually distinguish between an earlier Antimachus I
Deos and a later Antimachus II Nikndópos (Pl. VI, 3) ; but it seems more
probable that the coins assigned to these are merely the Bactrian and
the Indian issues of the same monarch. The two classes are connected by
their types ; and the difference between them may well be local rather than
chronological. They represent the workmanship of districts separated by
some hundreds of miles and dissimilar in culture. They find their parallels in
won
>
## p. 494 (#532) ############################################
494
[CH.
SUCCESSORS OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT
the coinages of other Graeco-Indian kings, viz. Demetrius, Eucratides, and
Heliocles. Like the title 'Acikgros, which is borne by Demetrius, the
Nikodópos of Antimachus has reference to Indian conquests and is
not found on the coins struck in Bactria.
Of the Yavana princes who ruled only to the south of the Hindu
Kush, Apollodotus would seem to have been the first. He is twice men-
tioned by ancient authors, and on both occasions in association with
Menander. From such evidence as is forthcoming we may reasonably con-
clude that the two princes were members of the family of Euthydemus,
that they belong to the same period -- the period of Yavana expansion-
and that Apollodotus was the elder.
The copper coins of Apollodotus bear types 'Apollo : Tripod' in
evident allusion to the king's name (PI. VI, 4). These were restruck
by Eucratides with his own types in the kingdom of Kāpiça (Kāfiristān)
immediately to the south of the Hindu Kush (p. 501 ; Pl. VII, 36). The
types of the silver coins, 'Elephant : Indian bull' (PI. VI, 7) which may have
symbolised the tutelary divinities of cities, are commonly found on
the earlier native coinages of the N. W. , and the Indian bull is more
particularly characteristic of Pushkalāvati (Chārsadda) in the Peshāwar
District (p. 503). These types continued to be struck by Heliocles
.
(Pl. VI, 8). The coins thus show most clearly the transference of the
upper and lower Kābul valleys from one Yavana house to the other,
and they determine the date of Apollodotus I: he was, like Demetrius,
the contemporary of Eucratides, who was the predecessor of Heliocles.
From their home in the N. W. the coins of Apollodotus were carried
far and wide into other regions. Such distribution may manifestly be the
result either of conquest or of commerce : it is therefore no certain
indication of the limits of a king's dominions. But in this case numis-
matic evidence of the kind may well be adduced to confirm the state.
ment preserved by Strabo, that Yavana rule extended on the south-
west to Ariāna and on the south to the Indus delta and Western India.
Cunningham observed that, while coins of Apollodotus are found in
Arachosia (Ghazni and Kandahār) and in Drangiāna (Seistān), those
of Menander do not occur in these regions ; and from this fact he inferred
;
that these provinces of Ariāna were lost to the house of Euthydemus during
the reign of Apollodotus and before the reign of Menander (N. Chr. , 1869,
p. 146). They would appear to have come successively under the sway of
Eucratides and of Mithradates. 1 That Menander did not rule in Ariāna
seems certain. He is associated rather with the eastern Punjab (p. 495);
and in this region he may have been reigning contemporaneously with
Apollodotus in the N. W. and in Ariāna.
1 Chapter XVII,
p. 411.
## p. 495 (#533) ############################################
XXII]
ÇAKALA
495
The memory of Apollodotus and Menander was preserved in Western
India by their coins, which, according to the author of Periplus of
the Erythraean Sea ($ 47), were still in circulation in the last quarter of the
first century A. D. at Barugaza (Broach). But Yavana rule had long
ago ceased in this region. Early in the first century B. c. the country of
the lower Indus had passed into the possession of the Çaka invaders from
Seistān. 1
After the conquests of Eucratides and Heliocles the dominions of the
house of Euthydemus were confined to those districts of the Punjab which
lie to the east of the Jhelum, that is to say, to the old kingdoms of
Alexander's first and second Paurava, and to the region beyond. Here
the types of Apollodotus, 'Apollo : Tripod,' were continued by Strabo I,
by Çaka king Maues, and, with some modification in the representation
both of Apollo and the Tripod, by Apollodotus II Philopator, Dionysius,
Zoilus, and Hippostratus (Pl. VI, 5, 6 and Summary, p. 530).
Menander is the only Yavana who has become celebrated in the
ancient literature of India. He is unquestionably to be identified with
Milinda, the Yavana king of Cākala (Siālkot), who is one of the two
leading characters in the Milindapānha, the Questions of Milinda,' a Pāli
treatise on the fundamental principles of Buddhist philosophy. It is in the
form of a dialogue between the king, who had become notorious as 'haras-
sing the brethren by putting puzzles to them of heretical tendency,' and
the Buddhist elder, Nāgasena, who triumphantly solves these puzzles and
succeeds in converting his royal antagonist. It is thus as a philosopher,
and not as a mighty conqueror, that Menander, like Janamejaya, king of
the Kurus, and Janaka, king of Videha, in the Upanishads, has won for
,
himself an abiding fame.
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. 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. (Trans Rhys, Davids, S. B. E. XXXV, pp. 6, 7. )
The capital is described in the same somewhat conventional style in a
passage which begins :
There is, in the country of the Yonakas, a great centre of trade, a city that is
called Sāgala. situated in a delightful country, abounding in parks and gardens and gro:
ves and lakes and tanks, a paradise of rivers and mountains and woods. (ibid. p.
three symbols.
5. Æ. Mathurā : Gomitra. Rev. Gomitasa. Standing figures; on either side, symbols.
6. Æ. id. : Brahmamitra. Rev. Brahmamitasa, Standing figure, with r. arm raised; on
either side, symbols.
7. Æ. id. : Hagāmasha. Obv. Horse to 1. Rev. Khatapasa Hagāmashasa Standing figure,
with r. , arm raised; on either side, symbols.
8. Æ. id. : Hagāna and Hagāmasha. Obv. Horse to l. Rev. Khatapāna Hcgānasa
Hagāmashasa; to r, thunderbolt.
9. Æ. id. : Rañjubula. Obr. The abhisheka of Lakshmi. Rev. Mahākhatapasa
Rājuvulasa. Standing figure ; on either side, symbol.
10. Æ. id. : Çodāsa. Obv. Indistinct, probably as on no. 9. Rev. Mahākhatapasn putasa
Khatapasa Codāsasa Type as on no. 9.
11. Æ. Ayodhyā: Āryamitra, Obv. Peacock to r. facing tree, Rev. in incuse, Āy.
yamitasa, Humped bull to ). facing post.
12. Æ. id. : Mūladeva, Obv, Mūladevasa, Elephant to ). facing symbol. Rev. Wreath ;
above, symbel ; below, snake.
13. Æ. Rājanya Janapada, Obv. Humped bull to 1. Rev. Rājanya-jana padasa.
Standing figure.
14. R. Udumbara : Dharāghosha, Obv. Mahadevasa rano Dharaghoshasa Odum.
barisa ;r. , tree within railing ; 1. , trident battle-axe. Rev. Similar legend
in Kharoshthi characters. Viçvamitra standing, with r. hand raised ; ac-
ross field, Viçpa-mitra in Kharoshthi characters,
15. R. Çaka : Azilises. Rev. (Kh. ) Maharajasa rajatirajasa mahatasa Ayilishasa,
One of the Dioscuri standing.
1 All the coin-legends in this Plate are in Brāhmi, except when 'Kharoshthi'
is specially indicated.
;
.
9
## p. 486 (#524) ############################################
486
INDIAN NATIVE STATES
16. R. Kuninda : Amogbabhūti, Obr. Raño Kuņimdasa Amoghabhūtisa Maha.
rajasa. Deer to r. facing female figure ; above, symbol ; below, chaitya.
Rev. Similar legend in Kharoshthi characters. Chaitya surmounted by
nandipada ;r. , tree within railing 1. , svastika and another symbol.
17 R. Almora : Çivadatta. Obr. Railing with symbols between the posts. Rer.
Sivadatasa. Type uncertain (symbol or letter ? ); in margin, deer and tree
within railing.
18. Æ. Ujjayini. Obv. Elephant to r. Rer. Ujeni (ye] ; above, a hand.
19. Æ. id. Obr. Three-headed standing figure. Rev. The symbol usually found on
coins of Ujjayini.
## p. 487 (#525) ############################################
CHAPTER XXII
THE SUCCESSORS OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT
The disintegration of the Maurya empire was followed by foreign
invasions. Now that the unifying power was removed, the frontiers could
no longer be held securely ; and the history of N. W. India becomes for
many centuries the record of successive conquerors who came along the
coutes which led from Bactria (N. Afghanistān) over the Hindu Kush into
the Kābul valley or from Ariāna (Seistān and Kandahār) over the Brāhūi
Mountains into Sind.
The first three of the series, who belong to the period before the
Christian era, are known in Indian literature and inscriptions as Yavanas
or Yonas (Greeks), Çakas or Sakas (Scythians), and Pahlavas (Parthians).
Like other invaders they are regarded by the Sanskrit law-books and epics
as degenerate Kshatriyas who had lost caste through their neglect of the
religious and social code, and they are supposed to be of Indian origin, the
descendants of Tarvasu : but their names alone are sufficient to prove
that
they were foreigners, and that they came into India from Bactria or from
Irān. -
The Yavanas are the launā of the Old Persian inscriptions of Darius,
which show that the Persians applied to all Greeks without distinction the
name of the Ionians of Asia Minor who were conquered by Cyrus in 545
B. C. Greek soldiers and officials formed no unimportant element in the
administration of the empire of the Achaemenids ; and it is not surprising
therefore to find that the Greeks were known in India at a time when
a large portion of the North-West was still under Persian rule. The
occurrence of the word Yavana in a grammatical rule of Pāṇini (Iv, 1, 49)
is a certain indication that it had been adopted into Sanskrit before the
middle of the fourth century B. C. Its Prākrit equivalent, Yona, is used in
the inscriptions of Açoka to describe the Hellenic sovereigns of Egypt,
Cyrene, Macedonia, Epirus, and Syria ; and there can be little doubt that,
in all Indian documents earlier than the third century A. D. , the term denotes
a person of Greek descent, in spite of the fact that, like other foreign
487
## p. 488 (#526) ############################################
488
[CH.
SUCCESSORS OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT
settlers in India, many of the Yavanas had become Hinduised and had
adopted Indian names. At a later date, foreigners generally are classed as
Yavanas.
On three occasions have Yavana conquerors occupied the Kābul
valley, the North-Western Frontier Province, and large portions of the
Punjab. The earliest of these episodes, the Indian expedition of Alexander
the Great, has for more than twenty-two centuries been celebrated in
the Western world as one of the most amazing feats of arms in the whole
of history. Of its progress detailed accounts have been preserved by
Greek and Latin authors whose information was derived from the writings
of officers who themselves took part in the events which they describe ;
and in all these accounts Alexander himself is the great central figure.
No personage of the ancient world is better known ; but of this great
conqueror the records of India have preserved no certain trace ; he had
failed to reach the Midland Country, to which the literature of the period
is almost exclusively confined.
On the second occasion, Bactrian princes of the house of Euthy-
demus, whose conquests began c. 200 B. C. , succeeded in rivalling and
in surpassing the exploits of Alexander; and on the third occasion,
Eucratides, who had supplanted the family of Euthydemus in Bactria,
deprived it of its possessions in the Kābul valley and of a portion of
its territory in N. W. India, before 162 B. C. (p. 411).
No connected account of these two rival Yavana houses has been
preserved ; and practically nothing is known about the personal character
or achievements of the leaders who directed the affairs of a period which
must have been full of stirring events. A few isolated references in
literature, Greek, Roman and Indian, a single Indian inscription, and
the coin-legends of about thirty Greek kings and two Greek queens
supply the evidence which enables us to retrace very imperfectly a few
outlines in the history of the successors of Alexander the Great in India
during the second and first centuries B. C.
For about a century after the treaty of peace between Seleucus and
Chandragupta, c. 305 B. C. , and half a century after the foundation of
the Hellenic kingdom of Bactria, c. 250 B. C. , the southern limit of the
Yavana dominions was marked by the Hindu Kush. This broad band of
mountainous country, which separates the great river systems of the
Oxus and the Indus, was thus also the political boundary between Bactria
and Paropanisadae (the Kābul valley and the country north of the Kabul
river now known as Laghmān, Kohistān, and Kāfiristān). The mountain
barrier, although a formidable natural obstacle, has never effectually
prevented intercourse between the two fertile regions which it divides.
In all ages it has been traversed by migrating tribes, by military expedi-
## p. 489 (#527) ############################################
XXII]
DIRECTION OF INVASIONS
489
B. C.
-
tions, or by peaceful traders and pilgrims. It was crossed by Alexander,
from the Paropanisadae to Bactria, in fifteen days, and recrossed in
eleven days. The routes which led from Bactria over its passes converged
at a point near the present Chārikār where Alexander had founded the
city of Alexandria-under-the-Caucasus ; and, so long as this strategical
position could be held, invasion was impossible. But already in 206
the expedition of Antiochus the Great had shown that the
way was now open ; and the object lesson was not lost. Within a few
years, the Bactrian king Euthydemus and the princes of his house began
their triumphal career, the first stage of which was marked by the occupa-
tion of the Kābul valley.
From Kābul ancient routes led, on the one hand, into the provinces
of Ariāna - Aria (Herāt) on the west, and Arāchosia (Kandahār ) on the
south-west-and, on the other hand, into India through Gandhāra
(Peshāwar and Rāwalpindi) on the south-east. It is probable that the
Yavana power expanded in all these directions ; but it was in the
second or third of these-to Arachosia and to India –that its progress
was most marked. In these directions it must no doubt have followed the
routes once trodden by the armies of Alexander the Great. The full extent
of the Yavana conquests is described by Strabo (XI, 516) who quotes
Apollodorus of Artemita, the author of a history of Parthia which has
been lost :
The Greeks who occasioned its (Bactria’s) revolt became so powerful by means
of its fertility and advantages of the country that they became masters of Ariāna and
India, according to Apollodorus of Artemita. Their chiefs, particularly Menander (if
he really crossed the Hypanis to the east and reached Isamus), conquered more nations
than Alexander. These conquests were achieved partly by Menander, partly by
Demetrius, son of Euthydemus, king of the Bactrians. They got possession not only
of Patalene but of the kingdom of Saraostos, and Sigerdis, which constitute the
mainder of the coast. . . . . . They extended their empire even as far as the Seres and
Phryni. (Trans. M'Crindle, Ancient India, pp. 100-1. )
This passage is not without its difficulties ; but the general purport
is clear.
The conquest of the Bactrian kings are said to have been
carried to the south over the Hindu Kush into S. Afghānistān, the North-
Western Frontier Province, the Punjab, Sind, and Kāthiāwār, and to the
east over the Pāmirs into Chinese Turkestān. Unfortunately the Indian
limits of this extension are somewhat doubtful. The Hypanis must certainly
be intended for the Hyphasis (Beās), the eastern limit of Alexander's march;
and the Isamus most probably be intended for the Jumna. Patalene, the
1 (1) M ‘Crindle, The Invasion of Intl. by Alex. the Great (ed. 1896), p. 39 ; cf.
Holdich, Gates of India, pp. 87-8. (2) Itinerarium Alex. Mag. , 104, trans. M'Crindle,
Ancient India, p. 150.
re-
## p. 490 (#528) ############################################
490
[CH.
SUCCESSORS OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT
country of Patala, is the Indus delta. If the reading Saraostos, which has
been restored from the mss. , be correct, it must undoubtedly represent
Surāshtra (Kāthiāwār). The identification of Sigerdis is uncertain.
The Indian conquests, attributed by Apollodorus to Demetrius and
Menander, were ascribed by Trogus Pompeius (Justin, Prologue to Book
XLI) to Apollodotus and Menander. It seems probable that Apollodotus
and Menander, as well as Demetrius, belonged to the house of Euthydemus,
and that all these three princes were contemporary.
Some of the principal stages in the routes which the conquering
armies must have followed together with the distances between the stages,
are known from ancient authorities who derived their information from
the campaigns of Alexander and Seleucus. The most complete record
has been preserved by Pliny (vi, 17 (21). Many of his measurements are
no doubt correct, when due allowance is made for the necessary detours in
marches ; but, as others are evidently less exact, it will be more conve.
nient to summarise here such information as is supplied by the Imperial
Gazetteer, and to estimate other distances approximately by straight lines
drawn on the map (Railway and Canal Map of India, 1910).
From Chārikār (Alexandria-under-the-Caucasus) to Kābul (Ortospanum)
40 miles.
Kabu! (1) S. W. to Kandahār (Alexandria-among-the-Arachosians)
313 miles,
(2) S. to Indus delta, in a straight line
725
to S. Kathiāwār
1000
(3) E. to Jālālabād (Vagara)
101
Jatālabād E. to Peshāwār (Purushapura)
79
Stages on the royal road' which ran from Chārsadda,
16 iniles N. E, of Peshawar, to Patna, measured in a series
of straight lines. )
Chārasadda (Pushkalāvati) E. to Shāhdheri (Takshaçiiā)
80
Shāhdheri S. E. to Jhelum (Vicaea)
70
Jhelum S. E. to Siālkot (Çākala)
Siālkot S. E. to the Beās (Hyphasis)
The Beās S. E. to the Sutlej (Hesydrus) at Rūpar
85
the Sutlej S. to the Jumna (Yamunā) at Karnāl (old bed)
100
The second great Yavana invasion had thus passed beyond the
bounds of Alexander's Indian realm in two directions -- beyond the Beas
eastwards, and beyond the Indus delta southwards. But it is doubtful if
.
the successors of Demetrius. , Apollodotus, and Menander exercised any
permanent sway over the very wide expanse of territory indicated in
Strabo's Geography. It is more likely that most of the princes whose coins
we possess ruled over various kingdoms in the northern region of this
area, that is to say, in the Kābul valley, in the North-Western Frontier
Province, and in the northern districts of the Punjab. It is certain however
9
>
55
65
## p. 491 (#529) ############################################
XXII]
TWO ROYAL HOUSES OF YAVANAS
491
9
that the military expeditions of the Yavanas were by no means confined
within these limits. One such incursion which broke through the Delhi
passage and penetrated the Midland Country as far as Pātliputra (Patna) is
described in the Yuga Purāna, one of the chapters of the Gārgi Samhitā.
As in all Purānic literature, we find here a record of past events in
the conventional form of prophecy ; and however late the work may be in
its present form, there is no reason to doubt that, like the Purāņas generally,
it embodies a more ancient tradition. From the passage in question we
gather that 'the viciously valiant Greeks,' after reducing Sāketa (in Oudh),
the Pañchāla country in the doāb between the Jumna and Ganges), and
Mathurā (Muttra), reached Pushpapura (Pātaliputra); but that they did
not remain in the Midland Country because of a dreadful war among
themselves which broke out in their owncountryl- an evident allusion to
the internecine struggle between the houses of Euthydemus and Eucratides.
This account is to some extent supported and supplemented by two
examples given by the grammarian Patañjali (a contemporary of the Çunga
king, Pushyamitra) in illustration of the use of the imperfect tense to
denote an event which has recently happened— The Yavana was besieging
Sāketa ; the Yavana was besieging Madhyamikā' (Nagari, near Chitor
in Rājputāna)? . Such incursions brought the Yavanas into collision with
Çungas who were now the predominant power in the Midland Country ;
and Kālidāsa's drama, the Malavikagnimitra (Act v) preserves the memory
of a conflict on the banks of the river Sindhu (v. sup. p. 469), in which a
Yavana force was defeated in the reign of Pushyamitra by the king's
grandson Vasumitra.
It is clear that such warlike inroads were followed by no permanent,
occupation of the Midland Country, and that the period of military conquest,
in which they are ineffective episodes, belongs to the earlier part of the
second century B. C. , when the Yavana power was as yet undivided by
internecine strife. But the struggle of Greek with Greek was not long
delayed. The conflict between the rival houses in Bactria was decided in
favour of Eucratides ; and the third Yavana invasion under his leadership
deprived the princes of the house of Euthydemus of their dominions in
Kābul and Kandabār (the Paropanisadae and Arachosia) nd in N. W.
India (Gandhāra).
After about 162 B. C. there were therefore two royal houses of
Yavanas in India, and several branches of these houses were established in
different kingdoms and ruled at the same time. The names and titles of a
number of princes belonging to these families have been preserved by their
coins ; and a study of the coins enables us to recover a few facts in their
history.
1 Kern, Brhat Samhitā, p. 37.
2 Kielhorn, Ind. Ant. VII. p, 266.
## p. 492 (#530) ############################################
492
[сн.
SUCCESSORS OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT
In the first place it is evident that some members of both royal houses
ruled both to the north and to the south of the Hindu Kush. Their coins
belong to two distinct ard unmistakable classes. The coins struck in
Bactria are purely Greek in style, in language, and in weight. They are
the most noble examples of Greek art as applied to portraiture. No rivals
to the lifelike portraits of Euthydemus and Demetrius appeared in the
world until after the lapse of sixteen centuries, when the Greek spirit was
again kindled at the renaissance and manifested itself in the medals of the
great Italian artists. Contrasted with these, the coin-portraits executed to
the south of the Hindu Kush are lifeless and conventional. Between the
two styles of art there is a gulf fixed. Neither can be brought into relation
with the other. They are the work of different regions and the outcome of
different types of civilisation. In Bactria the Greeks ruled supreme amid
peoples of a lower culture. On the south of the mountain barrier, in the
Kābul valley and in India, they were brought into contact with a civilisation
which was in many respects as advanced as their own and even more
ancient-a civilisation in which, as in that of Ancient Egypt, religious and
social institutions bad long ago been stereotyped, and in which individual
effort in literature and art was no longer free but bound by centuries of
tradition. With this deeply-rooted civilisation the Greeks were forced to
make a compromise, and the results are seen in their bilingual coin-legends,
and in their adoption of the Indian (or Persian) weight-standard.
Differences less strongly marked, differences of degree rather than of
kind, are to be observed in the style of the coinages which the Yavanas
issued in the kingdoms south of the Hindu Kush. This diversity is no
doubt the result chiefly of varying local conditions. The Yavana dcminions
were very widely extended ; and the influence of Greek models was naturally
less strong in the more remote districts.
TAE HOUSE OF EUTHYDEMUS
The princes of the house of Euthydemus who reigned both in Bactria
and in kingdoms south of the Hindu Kush are Demetrius, Pantaleon,
Agathocles, and probably also Antimachus.
Of these Demetrius alone is known to the Greek historians, whose
statements as to his Indian conquests are confirmed, though scarcely
supplemented, by the evidence of coins. The district, in which his bilingual
square copper coins were struck, has not been determined ; and all that can
be said of his round coins, with types 'Elephant's head : Caduceus' and
Greek legend only, is that they were directly copied by the Çaka king
Maues, and that they must therefore have been in circulation in the lower
Kābul valley or in N. W, India (Pl. VI, 1, 2).
Chapter XVII, pp. 400-2
1
## p. 493 (#531) ############################################
ΧΧιι]
THE HOUSE OF EUTHYDEMUS
493
Pantaleon and Agathocles were undoubtedly closely connected, since
they struck coins which are identical in type and form. These were
borrowed from the earlier native currency which prevailed generally in the
Paropanisadae and Gandhāra. From a general consideration of the
provenance of their coins, which are found in Kābul, Ghazni, and Kandahār,
Cunningham concluded that Pantaleon and Agathocles must have ruled
over the Western Paropanisadae and Arachosia (N. Chr. , 1869, p. 41). They
would seem therefore to represent the south-western extension of the
Yavana power.
The commemorative medals struck by Antimachus show that he
claimed to be the successor of Diodotus and Euthydemus ; but there is
nothing to indicate his relation to Agathocles who makes the same claim.
The two princes may have been ruling at the same period in different king-
doms. From the recorded discoveries of the Indian coins of Antimachus,
Cunningham inferred that he ruled in the lower Kābul valley (the districts
of Jalālābād and Peshāwar). The reverse type in which the king is repre-
sented on a prancing horse and wearing a flat cap (kausia), as on the
obverse of the large silver Bactrian coins, is evidently a portrait ; and the
same type is continued on the coins of Philoxenus, Nicias, and Hippos-
tratus, who may have succeeded to the kingdom of Antimachus.
But if these four princes really ruled over the same kingdom, its
locality must be sought rather in the country of the Jhelum than in
the lower Kābul Valley. The coins of Philoxenus are found only to the east
of Jalālabad (B. M. Cat. , p. XXXVIII), and those of Nicias only in the Jhelum
District (Smith, Early Hist. of India. , 3rd ed. , p. 213); while the types
'Apollo : Tripod' which are also struck by Hippostratus seem undoubtedly,
in later times, to have been confined to the eastern districts of the Punjab
(p. 498). The occurrence of the type 'King on prancing horse' on the joint
coins of Hermaeus and Calliope may, as Cunningham suggested, indicate
the union of two royal houses.
The Bactrian and Indian coins of Antimachus with their types
*Poseidon' and 'Victory' must refer to a naval triumph ; and it is difficult
;
to explain the allusion except on the supposition that this king had
a victory on one of the great Indian rivers – the Indus or the
Jhelum.
Numismatists usually distinguish between an earlier Antimachus I
Deos and a later Antimachus II Nikndópos (Pl. VI, 3) ; but it seems more
probable that the coins assigned to these are merely the Bactrian and
the Indian issues of the same monarch. The two classes are connected by
their types ; and the difference between them may well be local rather than
chronological. They represent the workmanship of districts separated by
some hundreds of miles and dissimilar in culture. They find their parallels in
won
>
## p. 494 (#532) ############################################
494
[CH.
SUCCESSORS OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT
the coinages of other Graeco-Indian kings, viz. Demetrius, Eucratides, and
Heliocles. Like the title 'Acikgros, which is borne by Demetrius, the
Nikodópos of Antimachus has reference to Indian conquests and is
not found on the coins struck in Bactria.
Of the Yavana princes who ruled only to the south of the Hindu
Kush, Apollodotus would seem to have been the first. He is twice men-
tioned by ancient authors, and on both occasions in association with
Menander. From such evidence as is forthcoming we may reasonably con-
clude that the two princes were members of the family of Euthydemus,
that they belong to the same period -- the period of Yavana expansion-
and that Apollodotus was the elder.
The copper coins of Apollodotus bear types 'Apollo : Tripod' in
evident allusion to the king's name (PI. VI, 4). These were restruck
by Eucratides with his own types in the kingdom of Kāpiça (Kāfiristān)
immediately to the south of the Hindu Kush (p. 501 ; Pl. VII, 36). The
types of the silver coins, 'Elephant : Indian bull' (PI. VI, 7) which may have
symbolised the tutelary divinities of cities, are commonly found on
the earlier native coinages of the N. W. , and the Indian bull is more
particularly characteristic of Pushkalāvati (Chārsadda) in the Peshāwar
District (p. 503). These types continued to be struck by Heliocles
.
(Pl. VI, 8). The coins thus show most clearly the transference of the
upper and lower Kābul valleys from one Yavana house to the other,
and they determine the date of Apollodotus I: he was, like Demetrius,
the contemporary of Eucratides, who was the predecessor of Heliocles.
From their home in the N. W. the coins of Apollodotus were carried
far and wide into other regions. Such distribution may manifestly be the
result either of conquest or of commerce : it is therefore no certain
indication of the limits of a king's dominions. But in this case numis-
matic evidence of the kind may well be adduced to confirm the state.
ment preserved by Strabo, that Yavana rule extended on the south-
west to Ariāna and on the south to the Indus delta and Western India.
Cunningham observed that, while coins of Apollodotus are found in
Arachosia (Ghazni and Kandahār) and in Drangiāna (Seistān), those
of Menander do not occur in these regions ; and from this fact he inferred
;
that these provinces of Ariāna were lost to the house of Euthydemus during
the reign of Apollodotus and before the reign of Menander (N. Chr. , 1869,
p. 146). They would appear to have come successively under the sway of
Eucratides and of Mithradates. 1 That Menander did not rule in Ariāna
seems certain. He is associated rather with the eastern Punjab (p. 495);
and in this region he may have been reigning contemporaneously with
Apollodotus in the N. W. and in Ariāna.
1 Chapter XVII,
p. 411.
## p. 495 (#533) ############################################
XXII]
ÇAKALA
495
The memory of Apollodotus and Menander was preserved in Western
India by their coins, which, according to the author of Periplus of
the Erythraean Sea ($ 47), were still in circulation in the last quarter of the
first century A. D. at Barugaza (Broach). But Yavana rule had long
ago ceased in this region. Early in the first century B. c. the country of
the lower Indus had passed into the possession of the Çaka invaders from
Seistān. 1
After the conquests of Eucratides and Heliocles the dominions of the
house of Euthydemus were confined to those districts of the Punjab which
lie to the east of the Jhelum, that is to say, to the old kingdoms of
Alexander's first and second Paurava, and to the region beyond. Here
the types of Apollodotus, 'Apollo : Tripod,' were continued by Strabo I,
by Çaka king Maues, and, with some modification in the representation
both of Apollo and the Tripod, by Apollodotus II Philopator, Dionysius,
Zoilus, and Hippostratus (Pl. VI, 5, 6 and Summary, p. 530).
Menander is the only Yavana who has become celebrated in the
ancient literature of India. He is unquestionably to be identified with
Milinda, the Yavana king of Cākala (Siālkot), who is one of the two
leading characters in the Milindapānha, the Questions of Milinda,' a Pāli
treatise on the fundamental principles of Buddhist philosophy. It is in the
form of a dialogue between the king, who had become notorious as 'haras-
sing the brethren by putting puzzles to them of heretical tendency,' and
the Buddhist elder, Nāgasena, who triumphantly solves these puzzles and
succeeds in converting his royal antagonist. It is thus as a philosopher,
and not as a mighty conqueror, that Menander, like Janamejaya, king of
the Kurus, and Janaka, king of Videha, in the Upanishads, has won for
,
himself an abiding fame.
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. 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. (Trans Rhys, Davids, S. B. E. XXXV, pp. 6, 7. )
The capital is described in the same somewhat conventional style in a
passage which begins :
There is, in the country of the Yonakas, a great centre of trade, a city that is
called Sāgala. situated in a delightful country, abounding in parks and gardens and gro:
ves and lakes and tanks, a paradise of rivers and mountains and woods. (ibid. p.
