When Socrates Met The Buddha: Greek and Indian Dialectic in Hellenistic Bactria and India

When Socrates met the Buddha:
Greek and Indian Dialectic in Hellenistic
Bactria and India
DAVID H. SICK
If with all these openings there had been no exchange whatever between East and West in their
literary productions, it would have been strange, to say no more; and though, as I repeat, we
have no tangible evidence of anything like translations, whether oriental or occidental, at that
time . . .1
Those words come from one of Max Müller’s last essays ‘Coincidences’, in which he listed
the many points of contact between East and West in the period after Alexander the Great’s
invasion of Bactria and the Indus valley. Müller thought a translation of a literary work from
Greek or Latin to Sanskrit or Pāli or vice versa might be the key to resolving the numerous
similarities he had found in the myths of East and West, particularly in the sacred texts of
Buddhism and Christianity. In fact, according to his son, the collection of these parallels was
the project on which Müller was working at his death.2 Had the father of the Sacred Books
of the East lived another half century, he would have had his translation, but, I believe, he
would have been disappointed with the profit accrued so far from the discovery.
The translations we now have are Greek versions of portions of Aśoka’s monumental
inscriptions, found in Kandahar after the second world war, in one of the infrequent lulls
in Afghanistan’s tumultuous history. A continuous text of the end of rock edict XII and the
beginning of XIII came to light in 1963, and a compilation of the minor rock edicts was
found in 1957. The latter was rendered in both Greek and Aramaic. To be certain, Müller
would have hoped for much more; through these inscriptions we have rescued only 300
words of Greek from the multicultural world of Hellenistic India, and, to be certain, neither
is actually a literal translation but more of a paraphrasing or summary. Their initial discovery
excited scholars in usually distinct fields. The possibility of solving questions concerning
the first major historical interaction between the eastern and western traditions has attracted
much interest, especially since so little direct evidence exists from Hellenistic India and
Bactria. Much effort and skill have been used in deciphering, editing, and publishing these
texts.3 I believe we can now move beyond linguistic studies and commentaries to use Aśoka’s
1 F.M. Müller, Last Essays (First Series) (New York, 1901), p. 269.
2 Ibid., p. vi.
3 For the initial discovery, see L. Robert, “Séance du 20 Juin”, CRAI (1958), pp. 189–191, and D. Schlumberger,
“Une nouvelle inscription Grecque d’Açoka”, CRAI (1964), pp. 126–140. Fuller treatments can be found in G.
Pugliese Carratelli, G. Garbini, and U. Scerrato, A bilingual Graeco-Aramaic Edict by Aśoka (Rome, 1964); this
is a revised version in English of G. Pugliese Carratelli, G. Levi Della Vida, and U. Scerrato, Un editto bilingue
greco-aramaico di Aśoka (Rome, 1958); D. Schlumberger, L. Robert, and A. Dupont-Sommer, “Une bilingue gréco-
araméenne d’Asoka”, JA CCXLVI (1958), pp. 1–48; and É. Benveniste, “Édits d’Asoka en traduction grecque”,
JRAS, Series 3, 17, 3 (2007), pp. 253–278

C The Royal Asiatic Society 2007
doi:10.1017/S1356186307007249 Printed in the United Kingdom

254 David H. Sick
multilingual inscriptions as a sort of cultural Rosetta stone, to resolve other questions about
the relationship between ancient India and the Mediterranean.4 If we look at the content of
those few lines, we can trace it in two directions, both to the east and to the west.
The fact that Aśoka chose to use one of his major proclamations (XII) to prescribe the
manner of discussions to be held between members of different philosophical schools or
religious orders is significant. It is striking that a ruler, even one such as Aśoka with an
interest in religion, would use a public proclamation to instruct philosophers or monks,
“to accept each other’s teachings”.5 The emperor’s recommendations are laden with the
ecumenism for which he became famous. He and his government will “honour all sects”6
and will ask the sages to respect each other as well by neither overly praising their own
schools nor too harshly criticizing others.7 Criticism and adulation “should be light on
any occasion”,8 for it is in the interaction between sects that their respective goals are best
achieved.
Those acting in this way will become better educated, providing for each other as much as each
knows.9
If one does not so humiliate a discussant or glorify one’s own philosophic accomplishments,
continued dialogue and growth are possible. In short, Aśoka asked the learned of his realm
to cooperate in the acquisition of knowledge, and the key to this cooperation was to be
self-control.
It is to our advantage that a Greek version of the brief treatise on public discussion was made
and is now extant. Teaching through dialogue is a tradition shared by both Mediterranean
and Indian philosophy and religion. We will follow the ideas and language of the twelfth edict
west into the famous dialogues between Alexander the Great and the brahmans and east into
the complex conversations between King Milinda, the Greek Menander, and the Buddhist
monk Nāgasena. The latter dialogue is recorded in the Milindapañha, a non-canonical but
very important work of Buddhism. Our final objective is to provide some insight into two
JA CCLII (1964), pp. 137–157. Some linguistic studies include S. Shaked, “Notes on the new Aśoka inscription
from Kandahar”, JRAS (1969), pp. 118–122; K.R. Norman, “Notes on the Greek Version of Aśoka’s Twelfth
and Thirteenth Edicts”, JRAS (1972), pp. 111–118; A. Christol, “Les édits grecs d’Aśoka: étude linguistique”, JA
CCLXXI (1983), pp. 25–42. For the Aśokan edicts more generally, more recent developments, and bibliography,
see F.R. Allchin and K.R. Norman, “Guide to the Aśokan Inscriptions”, South Asian Studies I (1985), pp. 43–50;
and R.Thapar, Aśoka and the Decline of the Mauryas, rev. ed. (Oxford, 1997), pp. 228–238, 250–266.
4 In keeping with the goals of Müller, F. Adrados, “Aśoka’s Inscriptions and Persian, Greek and Latin Epigraphy”,
in Amr.tadhārā: Prof. R.N. Dandekar Felicitation Volume, ed. S.D. Joshi (Dehli, 1984), pp. 1–15, traces the style used
in Aśokan inscriptions through the Hellenistic period and into Augustan monumental proclamations.
5 XII.8: . . . τὰαλλ
’ ήλων διδάγµατα παραδχσθα ´ ι . . . (The eighth line according to the editions of
Benveniste and Schlumberger.)
6 XII.A: Devanampriyo Priyadraśi raya savra-prasamdani . . . pujeti . . . The edition and system of citation is that
. . ..
of E. Hultzsch, The Inscriptions of Asoka (Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum I) (Oxford, 1925). The later works of J.
Bloch, Les Inscriptions d’Asoka (Paris, 1950) and P.K. Andersen, Studies in the Minor Rock Edicts of Aśoka (Critical
Edition I) (Freiburg, 1990) are also very helpful. I am citing from the edicts found at Shāhbāzgar.hi unless stated
otherwise. These are, of the extant Prākrit versions, the closest geographically to Kandahar. It should be noted,
however, that the last incomplete line of the Greek, καὶ τι ν ’ τoι̃ς ’ θνσίν ι’ σιν. . ., seems to be setting up
a sentence similar to one found at Kālsı̄ XIII.J. I have not corrected suspected errors nor added presumed diacritical
marks. In discussing specific words, I have, however, standardised forms and added markings.
7 See sections D-H in the Prākrit and ll. 3-8 in the Greek.
8 XII.D: . . . lahuka va siya tasi tasi prakara[n]e |
.
9 XII.9-10: ταυ̃τα δ ` πoιoυ̃ντ̇ς πoλυµαθστρoι ´ ’ σoνται, παραδιδóντς αλλ ’ ήλoις σα
‘ καστoς αυτäν
’ ’ ίσταται.
π
When Socrates met the Buddha 255
vexing questions: what of Greece is there in the Milindapañha and what of India is there in
the gymnosophists of the classical tradition?
I. Methodology
Before turning to source criticism and our final goals, I must sound a few warnings about
the methods that have been used in the past to sort through similar questions and those that
I intend for this study. Many attempts have been made to describe Greek sources, literary
or otherwise, extant or hypothetical, which influenced the Milindapañha, or, conversely, to
prove that the text is almost completely Indic in inspiration. Famously, W. W. Tarn claimed
that the Pāli text must have been based on a shorter Greek original. Jan Gonda responded by
showing that nearly every characteristic of the dialogue that Tarn claimed to be Hellenic or
Hellenistic could as easily come from an Indic source.10 Similarly, many have tried to trace
the Indian characters in Plutarch’s life of Alexander or other Graeco-Roman accounts back
to Indian types if not actual individuals, while the more circumspect have argued that the
gymnosophists of Greek literature are a product of a Greek worldview. Richard Stoneman
uses the Laws of Manu as a measure of the reliability of the Greek accounts, which derive
ultimately, in his view, from the first-hand experiences of Megasthenes, while Truesdell
Brown and Beverly Berg believe the gymnosophists to be Cynic philosophers translated to
an Indian setting.11 Typically, those who posit cross-cultural influence and those who argue
against it talk past one another; a source of influence is seldom disproved before another
explanation is proposed.
An example from the debate over the cultural location of the Milindapañha would be
helpful here and prepare us for our own discussion of its relation to the Aśokan proclamations.
I have chosen a rather simple point to demonstrate more easily the theoretical framework
which underlies the controversy. Just before the second meeting of Milinda and Nāgasena,
the king and his counsellors discuss the number of companions the monk should be allowed
to bring with him to the palace. One advisor, Sabbadinna by name, is insistent that the monk
bring only ten companions, although the king gives Nāgasena license to bring as many as
he likes.12 To Tarn, the number ten is significant because it is the number of Indian sages
that were questioned by Alexander. It puts the Milindapañha squarely in the Greek literary
tradition, although Milinda, by rejecting that number, transforms the tradition.13 Gonda
however, responded to these arguments with evidence from the Indian cultural tradition.
10 W.W. Tarn, The Greeks in Bactria and India, 3rd ed. (Chicago, 1997), pp. 414–436. J. Gonda, “Tarn’s Hypothesis
on the Origin of the Milindapañha”, Mnemosyne II (1949), pp. 44–62. See also Y. Vasilkov, “Did East and West
really Meet in Milinda’s Questions,” Petersburg Journal of Cultural Studies I (1993), pp. 62–77, who has gathered many
of the early attempts to prove influence.
11 R. Stoneman, “Naked Philosophers: The Brahmans in the Alexander Historians and the Alexander
Romance”, JHS CXV (1995), pp. 99–114. T. Brown, Onesicritus (Berkeley, Ca., 1949), pp. 24–53; B. Berg,
“Dandamis: an Early Christian Portrait of Indian Asceticism”, C & M XXXI (1970), pp. 269–305. Not all work,
of course, falls easily into one of two camps: A. J. Festugière, “Trois rencontres entre la Grèce et l’Inde”, RHR
CXXV (1942–3), pp. 32–57 at 40, sees the topos of a monarch questioning the sage as a multicultural product, with
“un aspect oriental et un aspect grec”.
12 Mil. 2.1.3. I am following the citation system of T.W. Rhys Davids, The Questions of King Milinda (Sacred
Books of the East, vol. 35–36) (Oxford, 1890–1894) 2 vols., since it is most commonly available. This system does
not correspond to that used in the edition in Pāli with a Sanskrit translation of J. Pathak (Delhi, 1964) nor that of
V. Treckner, The Milindapanñho (London, 1880).
13 Tarn, p. 433.
256 David H. Sick
Ten is significant to Buddhism as well; it indicates completeness: “. . . there are ten good gifts
to the bhikku, ten rules for the king, ten plagues and ten heavenly attributes . . .”14 How are
we to choose between these explanations for Sabbadinna’s insistence on the number ten?
Gonda and Tarn do not or cannot, because of their distinct training, speak to the claims
of one another, and, moreover, their ideas are not mutually exclusive. Any element of a
cultural product can be multiply motivated, and we would expect multiple influences in a
multi-cultural environment.
Traditionally, scientific method, or even Socratic dialogue, advances by testing a proposal,
and, if it proves wanting, that proposal is rejected and another is put up for consideration.
In proving influences on texts, particularly those that have been exposed to many cultural
traditions, such an approach for proof is not possible. It is not possible to disprove influence,
or, to state the proposition positively, to prove no influence. The latter requires the proving
of a negative, a logical impossibility. The exception to these principles would, of course, be
situations of chronological, geographical, or other impossibility. As a student of mine once
wrote dubiously, “Cicero thought little of Christianity”, and he stumbled upon the truth,
since the famous Latin orator of the first century BCE thought very little of Christianity
indeed.
J. Duncan M. Derrett has shown, with regard to the question of the transfer of ideas
between Buddhism and Christianity, that these problems in the traditional methodology
have produced a stalemate:
Scholars as optimistic as or positive for the Indian side as Winternitz cannot be sure that the
gospel texts are not derivative (and therefore false), or are incapable of showing that they are
not derivative; meanwhile New Testament scholars have abdicated interest in the question as
temporarily incapable of conclusive treatment . . . If in the words of Professor Caird no New
Testament teacher would give Indian claims any “credence for a minute” it is not because they
know the claims to be false, but because their minds are not prepared to approach the subject.15
The abundance of negatives in that short quotation should reveal the essence of the problem.
In order to prove a cross-cultural influence, one is also asked to prove the absence of the
quality in the indigenous cultural background. In other words, with regard to the New
Testament question, in order to prove the influence of a Buddhist Jātaka story on the nativity
narrative of Luke or Matthew, in terms of language, theme, or content, one is asked to
demonstrate first that Luke or Matthew could not have found such a theme or narrative
structure in the Judaic or Hellenic traditions. New Testament scholars, if we accept Derrett’s
view of the situation, ignore the claims of Indologists, because they have formulated their
own explanations from materials in their own discipline with its own geographic focus,
and, moreover, they do not have a knowledge of Indic literature or culture to disprove the
Indologists. As these arguments are not solvable, they resort to the question of chronology,
14 Gonda, p. 53. He does not, however, explain why Milinda allows for more than ten bhikkus, contrary to the
tradition of ten representing completeness.
15 J. Duncan M. Derrett, “Greece and India: the Milindapañha, the Alexander-romance and the Gospels”,
Zeitschrift für Religions-und Geistesgeschichte XIX (1967), pp. 33–64 at 37. Derrett himself has made progress in this
area through careful scrutiny of each proposed connection. See also “An Indian metaphor in St. John’s Gospel”,
JRAS IX (1999), pp. 271–286; “Consolation and a parable: two contacts between Ancient Greece and Buddhists”,
BSOAS LXV (2002), pp. 518–528; “The Picnic, The Buddha, and St. Matthew”, JRAS XIV (2004), pp. 75–79.
their only viable means of proof. Derrett, for example, dates the Milindapañha much later
than many other scholars, and this dating at 150 CE allows him to claim that it contains
allusions to Christian texts, rather than vice versa.16
Our plan is to start from the multilingual inscriptions of Aśoka so that we may avoid,
to some extent, these problems of methodology. First we will not have to argue the
chronological precedence of one tradition over the other. On one level, such an argument is
not necessary because the Greek versions are epitomes of the Prākrit texts.17 Logically, the
full treatment must come before the digest, but on another level, the study of a translation
may allow us to rethink our traditional notion of borrowing.18 For even when we have direct
evidence of the transference of an idea between cultures, we will find that this transference
is in reality a negotiation and not a simple borrowing. Moreover, even in the case of these
translations, where the Indic versions have precedence, we assume a strong possibility of
transference from the Greek to the Indian, since a conversation or negotiation would have
been necessary to convey the words into Greek. This is not to say that simple borrowing does
not exist between cultures; certainly technologies or the names of persons and realia would
involve less negotiation, but, given the history of scholarship on the Greeks in Bactria and
northwest India, it is time for a corrective.19 As a classicist, I am somewhat disheartened that
I will not be able to share my list of Graecisms in the Milindapañha by this approach. A facile
list of cultural borrowings is alluring but of minimal value. We will resort to this tactic only
when we can discuss a matter from both sides and locate it within both the Graeco-Roman
and Indic cultural traditions.
II. Tracing Themes in the Greek and Prākrit Proclamations of Aśoka
I will refer to the Greek inscriptions of Aśoka as follows in order to simplify the discussion:
Text A: the Greek and Aramaic inscription found in 1957, addressing some of the themes of
the first minor rock edict.
Text B: the Greek text redacted from rock edicts XII and XIII found in 1963.
A. Dhamma and υ' σ´βια
One claim often repeated in Aśokan studies is that υ' σ´βια ‘piety’ is used in the Greek
versions as a synonym for Prāk. dhamma-/Skt. dharma- ‘moral order’.20 Let us begin our
close reading by examining this claim, for it will allow us to note the sort of cultural
16 Derrett, “Greece and India”, at pp. 40–43, 57–63.

17 Pugliese Caratelli et alii, p. 29; D.D. Kosambi, “Notes on the Kandahar Edict of Asoka”, Journal of the Economic
and Social History of the Orient II (1959), pp. 204–206; Benveniste, p. 146.
18 We should also keep in mind the Aramaic version; the Greek and Aramaic show a degree of similarity which
would best be explained through the derivation from a common third source, not by direct borrowing from one
to another. Pugliese Carratelli et alii, pp. 5, 42.
19 As pointed out by Frank Holt in his preface to Tarn’s third edition, pp. iii-v, a division has existed from
almost the inception of the modern study. There are those who approach the culture as an Indic phenomenon and
those who describe it in Hellenistic terms. Note the titles of the first two major works in English: Tarn’s The Greeks
in Bactria and India versus A.K. Narain’s The Indo-Greeks (Oxford, 1957). Later studies depend heavily on these two
works because of their comprehensive accumulation of data.
20 R. Thapar has disseminated most widely the proposed connection between υσ ’ βια
´ and dharma. See
Decline of the Mauryas, p. 276; “Epigraphic Evidence and Some Indo-Hellenistic Contacts during the Mauryan
Period”, in Indological Studies: Prof. D.C. Sircar Commemoration Volume, ed. S.K. Maity and U. Thakur (Delhi,
258 David H. Sick
negotiation that had to occur in translating Aśoka’s edicts into Greek. We must be careful
in accepting the proposition. Aśoka’s dhamma, which is actually written as dhrama- in some
instances, particularly at Shāhbāzgar.hi and Mānsehrā, should not be equated fully with Pāli
dhamma- and all its later Buddhist connotations. After all, the edicts are not written in
Pāli. One assumes that the connection between dhamma and υ' σ´βια was suggested after
comparing Text A, which opens with the line “. . . βασιλὺς ιoδάσσης υ' σ´βια[ν. ]
’ δ. ιξν τoιô ς α' νθρώπoις. . .” and then lists several results of the king’s demonstration of

piety, with loci from the edicts which also describe the positive outcomes of the emperor’s
institution of dhamma. The results of the establishment of the Greek and Indic concepts are
very similar in several instances. For example, Text A claims that after Piodasses21 showed
piety, the people refrained from harming living things and obeyed their parents and elders.
We find similar outcomes to Aśoka’s application of dhamma in the second minor rock edict.
What is remarkable about this equation is that at no point in the Greek are υ' σ´βια or
words from the same root used as a direct translation for dhamma or related terms; words
with the root υ' σβ- are used six times in the Greek.
Those with a basic knowledge of Greek and Indian philosophy and ethics will recognize
that υ' σ´βια is wholly inadequate as a translation for dhamma. As Kosambi points out,
even numerous Indo-Greek kings chose instead derivatives of δίκη ‘justice’ as an equivalent
on their coinage.22 υ' σ´βια defines a respect or awe by humans toward the gods or other
divine beings; it applies much less to interactions between mortals themselves.23 In fact,
the description of υ' σ´βια found in Plato’s Euthyphro contradicts the two outcomes of
Aśoka’s dhamma given above from the edicts. Socrates’ interlocutor Euthyphro, a supposed
expert on piety, prosecutes his own father for the murder of a slave and at one point defines
piety or holiness (oë σιóτης) as a knowledge of prayer and sacrifice.24 The latter would, of
course, in a Greek context require harm to animals. Dhamma, or dharma, on the other hand,
is universally applicable; it describes a cosmic order in which there is a specific role for every
individual both in nature and society.25 According to Lord Kr.s.n.a in the Bhagavad Gı̄tā,
“One’s own duty (dharma) in its imperfection is better than someone else’s duty (dharma)
1987), pp. 15–19 at 17–18; but also Pugliese Carratelli et alii, pp. 32–33, Schlumberger et alii, p. 6, Benveniste,
p. 147, Adrados, pp. 12–13.
21 Πιοδάσσης, which transliterates Piyadassi- or Priyadraśi-, appears to be a coronation name or other title;
the name Aśoka is used in the edicts only at Maski and Gujarrā. See D.C. Sircar, Aśokan Studies (Calcutta, 1979),
pp. 53–54, 87–88; Pugliese Carratelli et alii, p. 5, Benveniste, pp.142–146, R. Thapar, Decline of the Mauryas, pp. 6,
226–227.
22 Kosambi, p. 204, and A.L. Basham, “The Rise of Buddhism in its Historical Context”, Asian Studies IV
(1966), pp. 395–411 at 405n.42. See Tarn, pp. 262–263, for a discussion of the coinage.
23 By transference υσ’ βια
´ can be applied to those in a superior political or social position, such as a ruler,
parent, or elder, but by the classical period it is more and more restricted to the divine. See D. Kaufman-Bühler,
“Eusebeia”, Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum VI, pp. 985–1022, and W. Foerster, “† υσβ’ ής, † υσ
’ βια,
´
† υσβ
’ ´
ω”, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament VII, pp. 175–178.
24 Euthyphro is in a sense hyper-pious to the point of the ridiculous, and, as one might expect, Socrates
undermines the knowledge and conduct of the supposed expert. We can assume, however, that the ideas of
Euthyphro represent a trend of thought at Athens. Plato would be unlikely to confront them otherwise. The
sections mentioned above are 4a, 5d, 13b, 14b-c.
25 Since dharma is an important concept in Indian philosophy and religion from the Vedic to the modern
period, the bibliography is immense. A few places to start would include R.C. Zaehner, Hinduism (Oxford, 1966),
pp. 102–124; G. Flood, An introduction to Hinduism (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 51–71; and the introduction by W.
Doniger and B.K. Smith of the Laws of Manu (New York, 1991), pp. xxxviii-xl, liv-lviii, lxxvi-lxxvii; the text itself
is crucial to understanding dharma in the classical period.
well-performed”.26 Thus, there is a dharma to follow for every individual, and, in fact, a
supposed Steyaśāstra even outlined the dharma for thieves, for if one was destined to be a
thief, one must perform well the duties of a thief.27 There would be religious duties owed
to the gods and performed in the form of rituals, but all of one’s social obligations would
also be defined by dharma.
At at least one point in Text B, the translator realizes that υ' σ´βια is inadequate to
convey the complexities of dhamma. At section I, after the authorial voice has repeatedly
recommended that respect be shown between sects, he concludes with the phrase “they
should both hear and listen to one another’s dhamma”.28 In this context, the meaning of
‘duty’, ‘ethic’, or ‘role in a specific situation’ applies more to dhamma than that of ‘universal
moral order.’ The phrase acknowledges that there are unique and distinct orders of dhamma.
A general notion of piety would seem inadequate for the context. In the Greek, at line 8
of Benveniste’s or Schlumberger’s edition, the same idea is expressed as follows: “. . . καὶ
α' λλήλων διδάγµατα παραδ´χσθαι.” δίδαγµα ‘lesson, teaching, principle’ is a more
concrete noun than the abstract virtue of piety; in reference to a religious or philosophical
sect one can point to the specific principles or lessons, whereas any manifestation of piety,
because it is so large a concept, will not convey the full significance of the Indic usage. There
is, however, a tendency in Aśokan Greek to concretize υ' σ´βια, perhaps coming from
its association with dhamma.
As we mentioned, Text A opens with a demonstration of piety on the part of the emperor.
According to the Greek (for which, see above), he literally “showed piety to the people”.
Such a construction, that is υσ ’ βια
´ as the direct object of the verb δίκνυµι ‘show’ or
one of its compounds, is rather rare in Greek and the Aśokan example appears to be the
earliest extant.29 If we understand δίκνυµι in a derived, abstract sense, Aśoka is teaching
or explaining piety to the people, but, if we read that verb in its most basic meaning and
accept the broadest understanding of τoι̃ς ανθρ ’ ώπoις, the emperor seems to be revealing
a hidden wonder to mortals. He may, in fact, be alluding to the inscription itself. It is
a striking opening, since the emperor at first implies a proclamation or revelation to all
humanity, although, as one reads further, it becomes clear that he is chiefly addressing his
own subjects. We find a similar physicality to υσ ’ βια
´ in Text B as well; in edict XIII,
where the emperor recounts his tale of conversion after the destruction of Kalim . ga, he notes
a definite regime he followed in pursuit of υσ ’ βια:
´ “. . . he made for himself an effort
and a system concerning piety”.30 Although piety itself is not made a physical entity, we
26 BG 18.47; the translation comes from K.W. Bolle, The Bhagavad Gı̄ta (Berkeley, 1979).
27 For the evidence for the existence of the Steyaśastra, see R.P. Das, “The Science of Stealing (Steyaśastra)
in Ancient India and its Study”, in Toh.fa-e-Dil. Festschrift Helmut Nespital, ed. Dirk Lönne (Reinbek, 2001) I,
pp. 167–175, and earlier A. Hillebrandt, “Zur Charakteristik der Śarvilaka in der Mr.cchat.ikā. Spuren eines
Steyaśāstra?”, Zeitschrift für Indologie und Iranistik I (1922), pp. 69–72.
28 . . . añamañasa dhramo śruneyu ca suśruseyu ca . . .
. .
29 I base this claim on my search of the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae. A few of the more easily accessible later
examples would include Athan. Ar. 26.321.28, Corp. Herm. 4.7.3, Eutrop. (Paeanius’ translation) 8.23.12, Joseph.,
AJ 10.50.2, Orig. Cels. 7.51.22.
30 ll. 15-16: . . . σπoυδήν τ καὶ σύνταξιν ππoίητα ι πρὶ υσβ ’ ίας. The stone itself reads
σύνταξιν, but many accept the emendation σύντασιν proposed by L. Robert. See Schlumberger, “Nouvelle
Inscription”, p. 131 and Benveniste, p. 138. In this expression our text comes closest to a direct equivalency between
dhamma and υσ ’ βια.
´ See section C of the Prākrit version.
260 David H. Sick
learn that there are to be personal and social manifestations of it. One in essence can “do
piety”.
Francisco Adrados has noted a similar prominence of piety in funerary inscriptions of
Antiochus I of Commagene (ca. 69–34 BCE) and the Roman emperor Augustus. He
goes so far as to posit an Aśokan influence.31 We also see a concretizing of υσ ’ βια
´
in Antiochus’ inscription. At ll. 11–14, the king calls υσ’ βια
´ both the most steadfast
possession (κτ¦σις ββαιoτάτη) and sweetest delight (’απóλαυσις ηδ ‘ ίστη) for human
beings, and, in this instance, the writer does intend all mortals, since the article has been
omitted from νθρωπoι. He later speaks of revealing a way of life through the judgment
of his piety, using a compound of the verb δίκνυµι in keeping with the Aśokan language
discussed above. He furthermore describes his mausoleum and the statuary associated with
it as both a witness and representation of his piety. The Greek terms used for ‘witness’
(µάρτυς) and ‘representation’ (τύπoς) both imply physical action; in the former case, a
witness is one who has seen and can report an event, and, in the latter case, a representation
is an imprint made through physical pressure.32 The link between Aśoka’s Bactria and
Antiochus’ Commagene would certainly be the Seleucid empire, although I have not found
a specific inscription which might have served as the vehicle to convey this emphasis on and
understanding of piety from one time and location to the other.
We are obviously implying that the use of υσ ’ βια
´ to translate dhamma had
consequences for that concept in the Greek tradition, but we must keep in mind the
difficulties of our undertaking. Both of these concepts are complex and neither was static
within its respective tradition. We see that the translator himself had doubts about the
equation, and, in an inversion of our argument, some modern Indologists have used the
Greek translation as evidence for determining the meaning of Aśokan dhamma, arguing that
piety would apply to all religions and thus Aśoka is ecumenical in outlook.33 We now move
on to another concept which receives at least as much attention as υσ ’ βια/dhamma
´
in the Aśokan inscriptions and for which the evidence for Indic influence on the Greek
tradition is more definite.
’
B. γκράτια, guti-, and sayama-
’
Self-control or γκρ άτια is an interest of three of the four major Greek inscriptions found
to date in Afghanistan.34 This emphasis in an Indic context should not be surprising. Ascetism
has been a part of Indian culture as far back as the extant evidence allows us to trace it.35
31 Adrados, pp. 11–14.

32 For the so-called nomos inscription of Antiochus I, see D. H. Sanders, ed., Nemrud Daǧi (Winona Lake, 1996)
II, pp. 206–224, and earlier W. Dittenberger, Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae (Hildesheim, 1960) I, pp. 591–603.
The lines pertient to υσ ’ βια
´ are 11–14, 26–27, 51–53, 212–217.
33 Basham, p. 405; Thapar, “Epigraphic Evidence”, pp. 17–18.
34 The exception is the thanksgiving offering of the son Aristonax also found at Kandahar. P.M. Fraser, “The
Son of Aristonax at Kandahar”, Afghan Studies II (1979), pp. 9–21; W. Peek, “Hellenistiches Weihgedicht aus
Baktrien”, ZPE 60 (1985), pp. 76. See R. Merkelbach and J. Stauber, Steinepigramme aus dem griechischen Osten
(Munich, 2001) III, pp. 6–8 for a collection of the Greek texts from the region.
35 P.S. Jaini, “Śramanas: their Conflict with Brāhmanical Society”, in Chapters in Indian Civilization, ed. Joseph
. .
Elder (Dubuque, Ia., 1970) I, pp. 1–81 at 44–47, provides background on ascetism in India before the rise of the
śramans, but see also the introductory chapter in W. Doniger O’Flaherty, Ascetism and Eroticism in the Mythology of
Śiva (Oxford, 1973), pp. 40–110.
Several seals from the Harrapan civilization depict an individual seated in a pose typical of
meditation, with legs crossed and extended arms balanced gently on the knees. The individual
is sometimes represented with three faces, wears a horned headdress, and is surrounded by
wild animals.36 In Vedic literature we find mention of various ascetic characters: munis, yatis,
parivrāts, and vrātyas cultivate their inner heat or tapas through austerity. Famous is the long-
haired, naked muni of RV 10.136 who flies through the air in an ecstatic state.37 Ascetism,
however, becomes more common and systematic in India with the rise of the śramans in the
sixth century BCE. Buddhism and the Buddha himself were just one particularly successful
constituent group of this movement. Śramanism was inspired by a reaction to traditional
brahmanist culture as represented by the Vedas and reformed in the Upanis.ads. One means to
respond to the hereditary privileges of the brahmans was to reject completely the customary
status of “householder” adopted by males and to resort to a very simple life ‘in the forest’.
Although the brahmans may have responded to the revolution by adding renunciation as
a fourth stage of life for all, extreme forms of ascetism, such as those promoted by the
Jains, arose and should be compared to the less severe monastic practices of the Buddhists.38
Megasthenes’ notes about his visit to Pāt.aliputra confirm the prominent position of both
śraman and brahman ascetics in the early third century BCE. He claimed that among the
śramans the most respected were those who lived in the forest and subsisted on leaves and
wild fruit.39 We thus find Aśoka in the middle of this debate, and perhaps through his
edicts and their ideas about self-control and ahim . sā ‘non-violence’ he is even in conversation
with such conservative documents as the Gita.40 In addition to his famous palinode in edict
XIII against the war with Kalim . ga and the frequent and scattered references to his refusal
to kill animals, Aśoka at several points valorises self-control, which is generally termed as
sayama- (< Skt. sam . yama-), literally a ‘binding together’. In his seventh edict, for example, he
recommends that self-control be a primary objective of all religious/philosophical schools.41
At the beginning of Text B, γκρατ’ ’
ής, the adjective related to γκρ άτια, is used to
capture the sense of guti- in the compound vacaguti- ‘restrained in speech’ of XII.D. The Greek
’
term γκρ άτια itself can be literally rendered as ‘inner strength or power’; it differs from
36 The most famous seals come from Mohenjo-Daro; see J. Marshall, ed., Mohenjo-Daro and the Indus Civilization
(London, 1931) I, pp. 53, III, p. 17 and E.J.H. Mackay, Further Excavations at Mohenjo-Daro (Dehli, 1937–8) I,
p. 335, II, pp. 222, 235, 420. The interpretation of the figure as a yogi of some type continues today; see G.L.
Possehl, The Indus Civilization: a Contemporary Perspective (Dehli, 2002), pp. 141–144.
37 See P. Koskikallio, “Baka Dālbhya: a Complex Character in Vedic Ritual Texts, Epics and Purānas,” Electronic
.
Journal of Vedic Studies I (1995) http://www1.shore.net/∼india/ejvs/issues.html; T. J. Elizarenkova, Language and
Style of the Vedic R
. .sis, ed. W. Doniger (Albany, N.Y., 1995), pp. 15–16, 67–70, for a discussion of the “inner vision”
of the poets; and J. Gonda, The Vision of the Vedic Poets (The Hague, 1963), pp. 289–301, his discussion of dhyānam
or ‘meditation.’
38 In addition to Jaini, see G.C. Pande, Śramana Tradition: Its History and Contribution to Indian Culture
.
(Ahmedabad, 1978) and A.K. Warder, Indian Buddhism (Dehli, 1970), pp. 28–42. For early Buddhist practice,
see M. Wijayaratna, Buddhist Monastic Life according to the Texts of the Theravāda Tradition, transs. C. Grangier and S.
Collins (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 1–17.
39 See Strabo 15.1.60, which cites Megasthenes; the terms used in this section are Bραχµνς and
αρµνς.
40 I. Selvananyagam, “Aśoka and Arjuna as Counterfigures Standing on the field of Dharma”, HR XXXII
(1992), pp. 59–75; C.-A. Keller, “Violence et dharma, chez Asoka et dans la Bhagavadgita”, Asiatische Studien XXV
(1971), pp. 175–291.
41 In addition to VII.B and VII.E, see XIII.O, Dehli-Topra IV.O, and the version of the first minor rock edict
from Gujarrā at line I. There may also be a mention at XII.D but the text is in dispute. See Sircar, p. 38n.7 and
K.R. Norman, “Lexical Variation in the Aśokan Rock Edicts”, TPS (1970), pp 121–136 at p. 133.
262 David H. Sick
the traditional Greek virtue σωφρoσύνη, which is also often translated by ‘self-control’ or
‘temperance’, by describing the same human activity as the result of a physical rather than
a mental ability. It is significant that our translator chose the former term over the latter.
σωφρoσύνη is a mental state which relieves the holder of excessive desires related to sex,
eating, and the consumption of alcohol. The physical control of these desires is γκρ ’ άτια.
For example, at Republic 430e Plato terms σωφρoσύνη a κóσµoς or ‘order ‘ which allows
’
the superior part of the soul to control the inferior, while Aristotle derives γκρ άτια from
42
the verb κρατι̃ν ‘to conquer’ at Nicomachean Ethics 7.7.4 (1150a35). In keeping with
this line of reasoning, Aristotle, in the same work at 7.2.6 (1146a10) and 7.9.6 (1152a1),
contends that the temperate ( σώφρων) have no desires over which control (γκρ ’ άτια)
is necessary; a perfect ordering of the soul according to reason results in an absence of excess
desire, and, thus, the temperate have no improper desires to struggle against.
In Text A, the voice of the emperor paradoxically suggests that in his new order, established
by υσ’ βια
´ or dhamma, “if there are any without inner strength (’ακρατι̃ς), they have
ceased from their lack of inner strength (τ¦ς ακρασ’ ίας) through power.” The physical
quality of the word is emphasized with the idiosyncratic phrase κατὰ δύναµιν ‘through
power’, as δύναµις can even imply a physical ability. The statement is unclear, however,
with regard to the exact nature of the power, the means by which it is to be applied, and the
identity of the wielder. We perhaps see here the broad context of dhamma, in that its sphere of
influence extends beyond Greek υσ ’ βια
´ into that traditionally allotted to σωφρoσύνη.
Dhamma, just as σωφρoσύνη, diminishes the need for physical power; its presence allows
those who are physically weaker to succeed in self-control. In Text B, the emperor promotes
’
the growth of γκρ άτια and υσ ’ βια
´ among all the sects or schools (διατριβαί).
The two terms together seem to be used as a synonym for the Prākrit sālavad.hi- ‘growth
of the essential’, if we compare the beginning of edict XII, although we cannot be certain,
for the beginning of the Greek proclamation has been lost.43 The same edict is particularly
concerned with control of speech and argues that control of speech requires the greatest
inner strength of all.
The third Afghani Greek text concerned with γκρ ’ άτια comes from a rather remarkable
site; its discovery demonstrated the full extent of Greek settlement in Bactria. In 1966
a dedicatory inscription was uncovered in the temenos of a hero in a Greek colony in
northern Afghanistan on the river Oxus. There, a certain Klearchos, perhaps the Peripatetic
philosopher from Soli in Cyprus, dedicated a list of Delphic sayings to the hero Kineas. We
can reconstruct a list of nearly 150 such maxims from other sites, but at Aı̈ Khanoum on
the Oxus, only five survive. Among the extant phrases is ηβäν ‘ ’
γκρατ ής “As a young
42 σωφρoσύνη is the subject of discussion of Plato’s Charmides, while Xenophon, Mem. 1.5 et aliis, emphasises
’
Socrates’ physical abilities with regard to γκράτια. See H. Chadwick, “Enkrateia,” Reallexikon für Antike und
Christentum V, pp. 343–365; H. North, SOPHROSYNE: Self-Knowledge and Self-Restraint in Greek Literature (Ithaca,
N.Y., 1966), pp. 125–132; M. Vorwerk, “Plato on Virtue: Definitions of ΣΩΦΡΟΣΥΝΗ in Plato’s Charmides and
Plotinus Enneads 1.2 (19)”, AJP CXXII (2001), pp. 29–47.
43 Norman, “Notes on the Greek Version”, pp. 111–113, posits that the opening lines of the Prākrit versions
have been summarized and conflated in the Greek and insightfully notes some problems with the usual interpretation
’
of sālavad.hi-. He suggests further that γκράτια ’ βια
and υσ ´ are given as examples of this term. The fact
that the two Greek concepts are in the nominative case, however, and thus the subject of the missing verb would
argue that they are rather a translation of sālavad.hi-, which is in a similar syntactic position in the Prākrit, whatever
the latter term may mean.
man, be strong within”.44 Valerie-P. Yailenko first noticed the link between the dedication
of Klearchos and the Aśokan proclamations and the prominence of γκρ ’ άτια in all.
Unfortunately, he became entangled in old arguments of historical precedence. Mistaking
the phrase ‘in the tenth year of his rule’, for the date of the inscription itself instead of
the sequence of time in the internal narrative, Yailenko claimed that the Greek versions
of the inscriptions of the emperor pre-dated those in Prākrit. Consequently he went on
to conclude that Aśoka’s concept of dhamma depended heavily on Delphic morality.45 The
emperor may indeed have been exposed to the traditional Greek ethic expressed at Delphi,
but we cannot prove such a theory by the historical precedence of the Greek texts of
Afghanistan. Yailenko’s work does allow us, however, to note a theme in the intellectual
milieu of the Hellenistic community of greater India; it moreover provides evidence of a
multicultural synthesis previously recognized only in the material culture of that region.46
C. Speaking and Not Speaking: Controlling the Tongue in Hellenistic Greece

and India
Yailenko also noted a stylistic parallel in the list of Delphic sayings and the Aśokan inscriptions:
both tend to use short, pithy commands which exhort the reader to moral improvement.47
Many are familiar with the words inscribed upon the temple of Apollo at Delphi: γνäθι
σαυτóν ‘Know yourself’ and µηδν ` γαν ‘Nothing too much’. Aśoka’s authors do tend
toward this structure, albeit in dependant, infinitive phrases, but the Indic Greek also employs
a related form of sentence: the gnomic truth, expressed in the third person. Thus we read in
Text B both commands such as φίλoυς καὶ τα ‘ ίρoυς αγαπν
’ καὶ µὴ διαψύδσθαι
‘Love and do not deceive your friends and companions’ as well as the expression γκρατ ’ ὴς
’
δ` µάλιστά στιν os̀ ’
‘ ν γλώσ(σ)ης γκρατ ής ‘He is most in control who is in control
of the tongue’. The latter phrase may seem familiar to those with a knowledge of classical
literature; we see the same sentiment expressed often in aphorisms. According to Cicero,
for example, “Discretion is welcome among humankind, the tongue suspect”.48 It will also
resonate well with Indologists, for the Buddhist scriptures include many similar proverbs,
some of which are attributed to Gautama himself. Strikingly similar are the words from the
Sutta Nipāta: “. . . he indeed is a muni who is controlled in speech”.49 The question of the
44 The Delphic maxims of Aı̈ Khanoum appear to be related to an inscription dating to 300 BCE found in
Asia Minor, a papyrus in the collection of the University of Athens, and a list attributed to Sosiades but found in
the works of Stobaeus. All the collections contain variations on a basic list. See L. Robert, “De Delphes à l’Oxus”,
CRAI (1968), pp. 415–457 at 421–457; Iohannis Stobaei Anthologii Libri duo Posteriores, ed. Otto Hense (Berlin, 1894),
pp. 125–128; F.W. Hasluck, “Inscriptions from the Cyzicus District, 1906”, JHS XXVII (1907), pp. 61–67 at 62–63;
A.N. Oikonomides, “The Lost Delphic Inscription with the Commandments of the Seven and P. Univ. Athen.
2782,” ZPE XXXVII (1980), pp. 179–183.
45 V.-P. Yailenko, “Les maximes Delphiques d’Aı̈ Khanoum et la formation de la doctrine du dhamma d’Asoka,”
Dialogues d’histoire ancienne XVI (1990), pp. 239–256; see p. 250 for his reconstruction of the date.
46 The influence of classicism on Buddhist art has long been recognised. For a full treatment of the Gandharan
movement, including a description of important recent discoveries from the Swat valley in Pakistan, see D. Faccenna,
P. Callieri, A. Filigenzi, “At the Origin of Gandharan Art”, Ancient Civilizations from Scythia to Siberia IX (2003),
pp. 277–380.
47 Yailenko, p. 244. The syntactic parallel again does not prove the precedence of the Greek; we would expect
our translator to fall into customary, comfortable patterns of speech.
48 Orat. 145: prudentia hominibus grata est, lingua suspecta.
49 v. 850: sa ve vācāyato muni See G.F. Allen, The Buddha’s Philosophy (London, 1959), pp. 51–54, for a
collection of proverbs and anecdotes which express a similar attitude toward silence.
264 David H. Sick
source of the proverb used in the Greek edict is an intriguing one, since it is not a direct
equivalent of the relevant section in the Prākrit of edict XII, which reads, “The root of
(the growth of the essential) is the control of speech”.50 Did our multi-cultural translator
transpose an Indic expression into Greek, or did he borrow a clever saying from the Greek
tradition? The answer is not immediately apparent, but we can follow the words put into
the mouth of Aśoka forward in time into Greek and Roman cultural history.
M. Philonenko has traced the Aśokan expression to several loci in classical literature, noting
particularly a discussion in the third chapter of the New Testament letter of James. James 3.8
reads: τὴν δ` γλäσσαν oυδ ’ ὶς δαµάσι δύνατι ανθρ
’ ’
ώπων, ακατ άστατoν κακóν,
µστὴ ’ιoυ̃ θανατηφóρoυ. “No mortal is able to tame the tongue, the most erratic of evils,
full of deadly poison”. Philonenko tentatively suggested a path from Aśoka to James through
Philo and perhaps even the Essenes.51 What he failed to notice is that various versions of
the Greek Aśokan proverb find voice in works with an interest in India, especially among
those who prescribe philosophy as a mode of life.
According to the third-century CE neo-platonic philosopher Iamblichus, Pythagoras
required a five-year period of silence on the part of his disciples as a test before accepting
them into the community, for control of the tongue was the more difficult than any other
subject for self-control: . . . ς χαλπώτρoν τäν λλων γκρατυµ’ άτων τoυ̃τo, τò
γλώσσης κρατι̃ν.52 The silence was viewed as a catalyst for σωφρoσύνη. Apollonius
of Tyana, the so-called pagan saint of the first-century CE, who according to his biographer
Philostratus did visit and study in India, also kept the prescribed Pythagorean silence, but he
did so for more mystical reasons. According to Philostratus, Pythagoreans have heard divine
secrets, which must be guarded, although it is difficult.53 The similarity of the Pythagorean
prescription to the Aśokan aphorism is striking, particularly in the Iamblichean example, and
the tradition that Pythagoras travelled and studied in Babylon may come to mind. Several
scholars have suggested, although often only in passing, that the Pythagorean doctrine of
transmigration of the soul was learned from Indians whom the holy man encountered in
Babylon.54 The Aśokan rule for γλώσσης γκρ ’ άτια provides a concrete connection
55
between the Pythagorean and Buddhist orders.
50 XII.D: tasa tu iyo mula yam vacaguti . . . The demonstrative tasa refers back to sālavadhi, and here Norman’s
. .
interpretation of the term as ‘mutual knowledge’ does aptly fit the sense. See again his “Notes on the Greek
Version”, pp. 111–113 for the difficulties of text and interpretation.
51 M. Philonenko, “Un écho de la prédiction d’Asoka dans l’Épı̂tre de Jacques”, in J. Bergman, K. Drynjeff, H.
Ringen, ed., Ex Orbe Religionum: Studia Geo Widengren Oblata (Leiden, 1972) I, pp. 254–265 at 262–265. Derrett,
“An Indian metaphor”, (n. 15 above) at pp. 276–277, proposes a Buddhist interpretation for James 3:5–6.
52 Iam., VP 17.72, and 31.195: ‘. . . to control the tongue, this is more difficult than other matters of self-control.’
53 Philostr., VA 1.1: πoλλὰ γὰρ θι̃ά τ καὶαπóρρητα
’ η’ κoυoν, ων
‘ κρατι̃ν χαλπòν ην. ’ . . For
Apollonius’ silence, see 1.14–15.
54 K. V. Fritz, review of “J. A. Philip Pythagoras and Early Pythagoreanism”, Gnomon XL (1968), pp. 6–13 at
8–9; W. Burkert, Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism, trans. E.L. Minar, Jr. (Cambridge, Mass., 1972), p. 133;
M.L. West, Early Greek Philosophy and the Orient (Oxford, 1971), pp. 61–62. J. Ferguson, ed., Clement of Alexandria
Stromateis, Books One to Three (Washington, 1991), p. 75 n329. Alexander Polyhistor, according to Clement of
Alexandria Strom. 1.15.70, believed that Pythagoras actually met with brahmans. C.H. Kahn, Pythagoras and
the Pythagoreans (Indianapolis, 2001), p. 19; C. Riedwig, Pythagoras: Leben, Lehre, Nachwirkung (Munich, 2002),
pp. 17–18, 96–97. K. Karttunen, India in Early Greek Literature (Helsinki, 1989), pp. 112–115, provides a more
extensive yet skeptical treatment of the evidence.
55 Robert, “Une bilingue gréco-araméenne d’Asoka”, pp. 14–15, finds a few terms from Pythagorean
vegetarianism (’ ´
απχσθα ι τäν µψ
’ ύχων) used in Text A, although he argues that the Greek terminology
developed prior to the Aśokan edicts.
The sentiment concerning the control of speech is found not only transposed to Greek
settings but in Greek accounts of India itself. In the reconstructed work “On the Races of
India and the Brahmans”, we find a supposed conversation between a group of brahmans and
Alexander the Great. This dialogue was first discovered among the works of a fifth-century
bishop Palladius of Helenopolis but is certainly a compilation from much older sources. It
contains material not in the commonly-known works on the life of Alexander by Arrian,
Q. Curtius, or Plutarch.56 The conversation between the king and the Indian sages focuses
on the nature of wisdom and how wisdom effects the manner of life of the brahmans. It
also describes some cultural differences between the Greeks and the brahmans, whom the
text seems to consider a distinct race, both ethnically and ethically, for they are described
as a sort of community of philosophers: νδρς í Eλληνς Bραγµνας ’ γνωτ, {’αλλ’
’ ’ ´ 57
oυκ πγνωτ}. As is often the case in this topos, it turns out that the naked, simple
philosophers are, in truth, more powerful than the military conqueror, for they have won
the battle within, while kings are concerned with externals and are often conquered by their
desire for such. In the terminology of Aśokan Greek, the brahmans have great γκρ ’ άτια,
while humans generally and kings and Greeks especially do not: ó φιλóσoφoς γὰρ oυ’
δσπóζται, αλλ’ ὰ δσπóζι, νθρωπoς γὰρ αυτoυ̃ ’ oυ’ κρατι̃.58 Note the presence
of the same root κρατ- in the verb κρατι̃ν ‘to rule, be in power’. Brahmans need no
clothes, drink only water from the river Tiberoboam, eat fruit from the forest, and say very
little; kings, on the other hand, are subject to numerous ethical conditions and diseases:
“desires, love of money, love of pleasure, death by deceit, {bodily intercourse}, avarice,
quarrelling”.59
The point concerning quarrelling is developed further; it is not only a question of the
spirit in which conversations are conducted; the problem lies not in the fact that Alexander
as a king is mean-spirited or violent, but that Alexander as a Greek simply talks too much.
For you (Greeks) say what is fitting to do and do the things not fitting to say, and no philosopher
among you knows something unless he says it. For your mind is your tongue and your thoughts
are on your lips.60
This caustic remark really seems an indictment of the whole Greek philosophic project,
which, through Socrates and his biographers, was dependent upon dialogue. We must call
to mind here not the best manifestation of dialectic to come from Athens, as it is often
represented in Socrates by Plato, but some of the worst sophistic abuses of the method,
as represented by Euthydemus of Plato’s dialogue of the same name or Strepsiades in
56 I am using the text of W. Berghoff, Palladius De Gentibus Indiae et Bragmanibus (Meisenheim am Glan, 1967).
See J. Duncan M. Derrett, “The History of ‘Palladius on the Races of India and the Brahmans’”, C & M XXI
(1960), pp. 64–135 for another reconstruction. A portion of the text has been found on a second century CE
papyrus. Both Berghoff and Derrett thoroughly review the manuscript tradition, and Berg (above n.11) neatly
summarizes.
57 2. 4 = Berghoff, p. 16: “You Greek men know of the Brahmans, but you do not understand them”.
58 2.3 = Berghoff, p. 14: “For the philosopher is not ruled but rules, for humans do not rule themselves”.
59 2.6 = Berghoff, p. 16: πιθυµ
’ ίαι, φιλoχρηµατίαι, φιληδoνίαι, δoλoφoνίαι, {σωµατoµιξίαι},
φoνoκτoνίαι, φιδωλίαι, διχoστασίαι . . .
60 2.8 = Berghoff, p. 18: υµ
’ ι̃ς δ ` λγτ
´ ´
δι̃ πoιι̃ν, καὶ πoιι̃τ µὴ δι̃ λγιν· παρ’ µι̃ν
δ ’ ὶς φιλoσóφων oυδ
` oυδ ` o’ ι̃δν, ’ ὰν µὴ λαλήσωσιν· µäν γὰρ νoυ̃ς στιν
’ ν ’ ‘ γλäσσα καὶ
η
’ ὶ τoι̃ς χίλσι αί φρνς.
π ´
266 David H. Sick
Aristophanes’s Clouds who plans to use any argument, just or unjust, to escape from his
debts.61 In the former example, Euthydemus and his brother Dionysodorus use a set of
prescribed questions dependent on equivocation to refute any answer that an interlocutor
might provide. Their objective is indeed not to find the truth but to impress a handsome
boy in the locker room of a gymnasium.62 Euthydemus and Strepsiades are not serious
examples of abuse of dialectic method; they are comic characters, frivolous in their use
of argument, but the humour results from their relation to serious movements in Greek
’
philosophy. Aristotle labels those who cheat in argument “eristic” (ριστικo ί) and charges
63
that many sophists employ eristic methods for personal profit. The role of rhetoric and
dialogue in classical Greece is an immense topic which we cannot treat fully here.64 Our goal
at this point is simply to provide some support or context to the brahmans’ description of the
Greeks as stereotypically talkative. Classical Greeks from serious philosophers to common
hustlers delighted in contests of words, and in the Hellenistic period that followed, contrary
to the Aśokan call for control, there were those who revelled in their words. Diogenes of
Sinope, who came to be the most famous representative of the Cynic movement, in no small
part from the impudent things he said to Alexander the Great, believed boldness of speech
to be the best thing in human society.65
We should contrast this zeal for speech with the recommendations for control of the
tongue which were expressed in ethical treatises of the Hellenistic period and later. Aesop
advises his adopted Babylonian son “τ¦ς δ` γλώττης γκρατ ’ ὴς Vίνoυ” in a long list
66
of ethical truisms in the Life of Aesop, and Plutarch agrees with Aśoka that control of the
tongue is very difficult if not impossible, unless, in Plutarch’s estimation, one applies practice
( σκησις), care (µλτη),´ and patience (φιλoπoνία) in the undertaking.67 He makes the
same point elsewhere by using a memorable anecdote about the Scythian Anacharsis, who,
’
it seems, slept with one hand over his mouth and one over his genitals, “γκρατστ ´
ρoυ
γὰρ τo χαλινoυ̃ δι̃σθαι τὴν γλäτταν.”68 Philo69 and G. Musonius Rufus70 argue
independently that there must be three objects of γκρ ’ άτια: the genitals, the stomach,
and the mouth, while St Anthony, from his cave in the desert, sees only the stomach and
the tongue as threats.71
The range of thinkers is noteworthy—Jew, Christian, Pythagorean, Stoic– yet they all tend
toward topics of religion and ethics, and more remarkably, of all the similarly constructed
61 Ar., Nu. 97–98, etc.

62 At 275e Dionysodorus whispers to Socrates that the young interlocutor will be refuted whatever way he
may answer, and at 272b, Socrates claims that the two can refute any argument, be it true or false.
63 Arist., SE 11 (171b-172a).
64 Some good sources to consult on the importance of argument in Athenian society and the philosophical
schools include K.J. Dover, Aristophanes Clouds (Oxford, 1968), pp. xxxv-xliv; H.D. Rankin, Sophists, Socratics,
and Cynics (London, 1983); D. O’Regan, Rhetoric, Comedy, and the Violence of Language in Aristophanes’ “Clouds”
(Oxford, 1992), pp. 9–21; L.E. Vaage, “Like Dogs Barking: Cynic Parrēsia and Shameless Asceticism”, Semeia LVII
(1992), pp. 25–39; G. Vlastos, Socratic Studies, ed. Myles Burnyeat (Cambridge, 1994).
65 D.L. 6.69: ρωτηθὶς τὶ κάλλιστoνν ’ ανθρ
’ ’ φη, “παρρησία.”
ώπoις,
66 Vita Aesopi (Westermanniana) 109.14; see François de Blois, “The Admonitions of Ādurbād and their
Relationship to the Ah.ı̄qar Legend”, JRAS (1984), pp. 41–53, for Near Eastern borrowings in the Life of Aesop.
67 Plu., De Cap. (Mor.) 90B.
68 Plu., De Garr. (Mor.) 505A: “. . . for he believed the tongue needed a more powerful restraint . . .”
69 Philo, De Congressu 80 and De Spec. Leg. II.195.
70 Muson., Dissertationum a Lucio Digestarum Reliquiae, Discourse 16.72.
71 Apophthegmata patrum 77.13.
Greek proverbs and exhortations we have reviewed, the one in Aśoka’s inscription seems to be
the oldest.72 I have, furthermore, discovered no direct connection between γκρ ’ άτια and
the tongue in the classical (5th–4th century BCE) authors. Prior to the Hellenistic period, the
’
tongue was not a subject for γκρ άτια, at least as much as the argument from silence allows
us to believe. Inner strength was needed to control physical desires, such as those related to
eating and sex but not speech. It would seem logical that speech would become an object
of ascetism only after the explosion of rhetoric in classical Greece. To be sure, admonitions
to take care in speaking go back to Homer,73 but the view that rhetorical desire must
be controlled in a way similar to the sexual requires an elevated estimation of the power
of the tongue. There is limited evidence that will allow us to move this hypothesis beyond
simple speculation. Xenophon, whose portrait of Socrates Henry Chadwick credits as the
’
foundation for the concept of γκρ άτια,74 specifically marks speech as outside the scope
of concern for inner strength: “They knew Socrates . . . to have the greatest control over all
pleasures, yet he might use anyone who argued with him however he wished75 .” According
to Xenophon’s logic, skill in dialectic is a matter for display, almost to the point of the abuse
’
of one’s opponent; it is not a subject for the γκρ άτια of the previous clause.
The treatment of the issue by the Christian Platonist Clement of Alexandria also deserves
closer examination. Clement seems to have had access, no doubt from the great library, to
important sources on India, including Megasthenes. He is, in fact, the only extant Greek
author to mention the Buddha by title,76 and his teacher Pantaenus is alleged to have travelled
to India as an evangelist.77 On several occasions in the Stromateis Clement cites from the
first century BCE ethnographer Alexander Polyhistor, who wrote both about the history of
India and Pythagoreanism.78 Clement includes a slightly modified version of the dialogue
between Alexander and the ten gymnosophists found at Plutarch Alex. 64. In Clement’s
version of the encounter the philosophers are no longer δινoύς ‘terrible/clever’ and
βραχυλóγoυς ‘succinct’ in answering questions, as in Plutarch, but αρ ’ ίστoυς ‘excellent,
noble’ and βραχυλoγωτάτoυς ‘most succinct’.79 In linking excellence to brevity, Clement
reveals his admiration for the Indo-Pythagorean rules concerning speech. He, in fact,
uses γλώσσης γκρ’ άτια to try to moderate some of the extreme forms of ascetism
72 A possible exception, Arist. HA 536b, is mentioned by Philonenko, p. 263, but the usage is of a different
sort. Aristotle describes how young children are unable at first to control their tongues, just as they are unable
to control their bodies in general. Only as they grow and train in the needed skills do they become linguistically
’
adept. γλώσσης γκράτια is a matter of physiology not morality in this instance.
73 Thersites, the most shameful man (α σχιστoς αν ’ ήρ) to come to Troy in Homer’s estimation, is
’
interminable in speaking (αµτρoπ ής), and his mind is full of many, disordered words (’ πα κoσµά τ
πoλλά τ). See Il. 2.212–6.
74 Chadwick, p. 343: “Nach dem Bericht Xenophons, der vor allem den Vorwurf widerlegen möchte,
Sokrates habe die Jugend verdorben, legte Sokrates großen Wert auf die Kontrolle der sinnlichen Leidenschaften
u(nd) erklärte die E(nkrateia) als die Grundlage der Tugend u(nd) der Religion.”
75 X. Mem. 1.2.14: δσαν δ ‘
` ωκράτην...τäν ηδoνäν ` πασäνγκρατ
δ ’ ´
στατoν ντα, τoι̃ς
δ` διαλγoµνoις´ ’ πσι χρώµνoν ν
αυτ ’ τoι̃ς λóγoις πως βoύλoιτo.
76 See Strom. 1.15.71; the earlier portions of this section almost certainly come from Megasthenes, since it
follows Str. 15.1.60. Strabo does not refer to Boύττα, however. There are some occurrences of the title in
material culture. See, for example, J. Cribb, “Kanshika’s Buddha image coins revisited”, Silk Road Archaeology VI
(1999–2000), pp. 151–189. BOO is inscribed on various series of Kushan coins.
77 Euseb. HE 5.10.
78 See Clem. Strom. 1.70.1, 1.130.3, 3.60.2, collected in Jacoby, FGrHist 3A273.
79 See Plut. Alex. 64.1 and Clem. Strom. 6.4.38.
268 David H. Sick
which were emerging in the new Christian movement, particularly among those whom he
identified as the Encratites, who indeed took their name from our concept,80 and, according
to one church father, some of their beliefs from the Indian gymnosophists.81 Clement argues
that inner strength is to be applied not only to sex but to other aspects of life, including
speech.
It is fitting to examine not only one form of self-control, that is that which concerns sexual
desires, but even that regarding the other sorts of things our souls desire decadently . . . Inner
strength entails a disdain for money, luxury, and property, power over the tongue, and mastery
of base thoughts.82
In the section which follows this exhortation to a broader notion of self-control, Clement
again compares the ascetics of India to those he has observed in his community, arguing
that in all cultures decisions about celibacy and dietary codes tend to be arbitrary. Even in
Alexandria, at the end of the second century CE, one must make a special case to apply
’
γκρ άτια to speech, and in the case of Clement, this argument is made after extensive
consultation of the classical sources on India.
It seems reasonable to conclude that the content of Aśoka’s edict if not the edict itself
spread beyond Hellenistic Bactria to the larger Greek world, given the acceptance of an idea
found in an Aśokan aphorism, if not the very aphorism. We have also suggested a reason as to
why that particular aphorism resonated culturally with the Greeks: public speaking became
essential to political success in the classical period, and, as any item which might afford
power, rhetoric was subject to abuse. We still have to address the Indic cultural background.
Why did the emperor Aśoka believe it important to express his ideas on self-control and
self-control in speech in particular; we must assume his motivations to arise from an Indic
perspective, although they were expressed in an Indo-Greek context. In order to understand
this Indic perspective, we must discuss the social conventions and institutions which arose in
India to allow for discussion among religious and philosophical sects.
83
D. διατριβή and pāsam
. d.a-
And there is no country where there are not those categories, namely both brahman and śraman,
except among the Greeks, and there is no country where men are not members of one pāsam . d.a
or another.84
80 P. Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (New York,
1988), pp. 122–139; D.G. Hunter, “The Language of Desire: Clement of Alexandria’s Transformation of Ascetic
Discourse”, Semeia LVII (1992), pp. 95–111.
81 See Hippol. Haer. 8.7 and R. Stoneman, “Who are the Brahmans? Indian Lore and Cynic Doctrine in
Palladius’ De Bragmanibus and its Models”, CQ XLIV (1994), pp. 500–510 at 504.
82 Strom. 3.7.59: αλλ ’ ὰ γὰρ oυ’ µóνoν πρὶ ν δoς τὴν γκράτιαν ’ συνoρν πρoσήκι,
´
τoυτστι ’
τὰ αφρoδ ίσια, αλλ ’ ὰ γὰρ καὶ πρὶ τὰ λλα σα σπαταλäσα πιθυµ ’ ι̃
‘ ψυχὴ ηµäν.
η ‘ ’
. .γκράτιά ’
στιν, ’
αργυρ ίoυ καταφρoνι̃ν, τρυφ¦ς, κτήσως, θας ´
καταµγαλoφρoνι̃ν, στóµατoς κρατι̃ν, κυριύιν λoγισµäν τäν πoνηρäν; see 3.1.4 for the
’
construction γκράτια πρὶ τὴν γλäσσαν.
83 I am following Norman, pp. 111–115, in normalising and correcting the various versions of this word in
the edicts.
84 XIII.J (Kālsı̄): n[a]thi cā se jan[a]pade yatā nathi ime nikāyā ānatā Yonesu, bamhmane cā samane cā, nathi cā
. . . .
kuvāpi jan[a]padas.i [ya]tā n[a]thi m[a]nus.ān[a] ekatalas.[i] [p]i pāshad.as.i no nāma pas.āde |
Those words from the version of rock edict XIII at Kālsı̄ provide a good starting point
for a discussion of the context in which the philosophical debates noted in XII were to
occur. In the Aśokan world view, humans, males at any rate, naturally divide themselves into
schools of thoughts, sects if you will. There is no place without the categories of brahman
and śraman except among the Yonas, but, even there, there are still pāsam . d.ā, and men attach
themselves to some sect or other. Rock edict V at line J corroborates the claim, noting
pāsam
. d.ā among the Yonas and Kambojas and assigning mahāmātas of dhamma to them. It is
a remarkable usage of the term, for elsewhere the comparable Skt. pāsan.d.a-, as at Arthaśāstra
1.18.9, 1.19.29, 2.4.23, 3.16.39, etc., identifies non-Vedic sects. Aśoka seems to subsume
brahmans, śramans and even Greek schools of thought into the same category. The levelling
of the categories is clearer at line G of XIII, where the emperor deplores the injuries to
“brahmans, śramans, or other pāsam . d.ā or householders” that may occur during conquest of
other nations.
The fragmentary and redacted Greek version of XIII (Text B) ends abruptly with the
phrase “And among the rest of the nations . . .”.85 The logical completion of that sentence,
by analogy to the Kālsı̄ version would be, “there are śramans and brahmans, but among the
Greeks not”. If we had the completion of the thought, we might learn whether our author
or translator would go so far as to declare that all men belong to some διατριβή or other,
for that word is used to translate pāsam . d.a- elsewhere in the document (for which see below).
Such a claim would simply be false for the classical period in Greece, but these schools or
modes of thought became more important vehicles for conveying simplified philosophical
concepts to the masses in the Hellenistic period.86 We might therefore accept the proposition
that every generally-educated male of the Hellenistic or Roman period would align himself
with an Epicurean, Stoic, or less popular mode of thought but not every aristocrat in Athens
of the fifth century was a member of the Academy or Lyceum. The diverse elements of
the śraman.a movement, in comparison to classical Greek philosophers, were evangelical and
populist in their approach. As we have noted, they strongly opposed the philosophies and
theologies which maintained the hereditary privileges of the brahmans, and they presented
their qualms to a general audience. Take, for example, the custom of uposatha day, a day of
the month traditionally set aside for dialogue between monks and lay people; the custom
seems to have been borrowed by the Buddhist community from other śraman.a sects.87 Aśoka
himself describes his own respectful visits and conversations with the sects.88 The tradition
is important to our interpretation of the Milindapañha, and we will discuss it below.
The usage of διατριβή in Text B provides evidence that its meaning was in transition.
The translator did not use it nearly as frequently as pāsam . d.a- occurs in the Prākrit, although,
of course, we must remember that our document has lacunae. Forms of pāsam . d.a- occur
85 Line 22: καὶ τιν ’ τoι̃ς ’ θνσίν ι’ σιν. . .

86 See W. Capelle and H.I. Marrou, “Diatribe”, REA III, pp. 990–1009. Their focus is the so-called genre of
diatribe, but this genre, which is supposed to have been a rhetorical method for addressing a large audience, must be
related to the schools. See S. K. Stowers, The Diatribe and Paul’s Letter to the Romans (Chico, Ca., 1981), pp. 48–78,
who emphasises the “scholastic social setting” of the genre, and by the same author, “Diatribe”, in Greco-Roman
Literature and the New Testament, ed. D. Aune (Atlanta, 1988), pp. 71–83.
87 G. MacQueen, A Study of the Śrāmanyaphala Sūtra (Wiesbaden, 1988), pp. 121–134; see also n. 38 above.
.
88 In addition to edict XIII.G = Greek ll. 16–17, see Kālsı̄ edict XIII.J, and any version of III.D, IV.A, IV.C,
VIII.E, IX.G, XI.C, and the Rāmpūrvā pillar text at Hultzsch, p. 155.
270 David H. Sick
seventeen times in edict XII, and in each instance the word is compounded in some way,
but the Greek translator related it to διατριβή only once. Line B reads, “The Beloved of
the Gods does not, however, value either gifts or honours as much as the growth of the
essential of all sects”.89 κατὰ πάσας τὰς διατριβάς in Text B seems to be used as a
rough equivalent of the genitive plural savra-pras.am . d.anam. Yet, although the imperial voice
goes on to discuss relations between sects, διατριβή does not recur in the translation of
edict XII. Circumlocutions and forms of words such as ‘other’, ‘self’ and ‘neighbour’ were
chosen instead. The verb διατρίβω is found, however, at line 17 where, as a nominalised
participle, it functions as a rough equivalent for pāsam . d.a- in section G of edict XIII. oί πρὶ
τὴν υσ’ βιαν
´ διατρίβoντς would mean ‘those arguing about piety/dhamma’. This
usage demonstrates the development of the verb. διατρίβω and the words derived from it
originally referred to any means of passing time in an unessential pursuit; they can even imply
a waste of time. Only when the terms became associated with philosophy and those Greek
aristocrats who were not pressed to spend their time in fulfillment of basic needs, did the
secondary meanings associated with discussion and argument develop. (In fact, pāsam . d.a- may
have a more direct association with questioning and argument, if we accept the etymology
proposed by Norman and Bailey.90 ) Finally, when those who were accustomed to argue about
ideas in public divided themselves into separate groups, διατριβή could indicate a sect or
school of thought or even the site where members of such a group met.91 The presence
of both κατὰ πάσας τὰς διατριβάς and oί πρὶ τὴν υσ ’ βιαν
´ διατρίβoντς in
Text B would argue that we find the word somewhere between the second and third steps
of its development. The verb can imply argument and discussion but there is infrequent
application of the specialized meaning of the noun. The existence in India of distinct, even
hereditary, schools of thought well before the third century BCE can only have furthered
any tendency for the Greek word to mean ‘sect’. The specialised meaning of διατριβή
found in Hellenistic India must have spread to other parts of the Greek-speaking world.
The meeting of East and West might here again, in regard to attitudes and methods of
philosophy, had consequences for both. In India, by the third century BCE, philosophers, or
pandits, had assumed the duty of conveying their ideas, although in a simplified form, to a
general public. In Greece, by the third century, a formal system for philosophical debates had
been established within the context of a traditional education in rhetoric. The confluence
of these two trends in philosophy can be found in the Milindapañha.
89 no cu tatha [da]na va puja va Devanam . priyo mañati yatha kiti sa[la]-vad.hi siya savra-pras.am
. d.anam |
90 Norman, p. 113, following H.W. Bailey, “Kusanica”, BSOAS XIV (1952), pp. 420–434 at 427–428, derives
the term from a supposed Iranian ∗ fraš- + -an.d.a- ‘asker, questioner’. M. Mayrhofer calls the etymology “schwerlich
vorzuziehen” (to other proposals). Kurzgefaßtes etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altindischen (Heidelberg, 1963) II,
pp. 265–266.
91 The examples given in the TLG in which διατριβή means a school of thought or the place where such
a group might meet are relatively late, even taken from Latin. The second century CE Latin sophist Aulus Gellius
speaks of himself as “recently admitted into the school” of Calvenus Taurus at 17.20.4: sic enim me in principio
recens in diatribam acceptum . . .; see also 1.26.1 and 18.13.7. It is lamentable that so little work has been done on
the history of the word διατριβή, given the large bibliography on this genre and its use in the early Christian
community.
E. Milinda and the Ends and Rules of Discussion
In the Greek dialogues between Alexander and the brahmans, Indic wisdom is presented
from a Greek perspective, and, in a further complexity, we see the brahmans’ opinion of
Greek philosophy in some of the same texts, although that opinion is obviously given by a
Greek author. In the Milindapañha we find an Indian characterisation of Greek wisdom or
philosophy from a more definitely Indic perspective.92 There are several key portions of the
dialogue which connect it both thematically and, to some extent, in specific language to the
Greek accounts of Alexander and the twelfth and thirteenth edicts of Aśoka. To establish
these thematic connections, we need to provide some background about the character
Milinda himself and his methods and goals in dialectic.
The initial action and discussion in the dialogue are driven by Milinda’s search for an
Indian sage, and this quest is marked by the king’s repeated questions to his retinue of
Yonakas: “atthi ko ci pan.d.ito saman.o vā brāhman.o vā sanghı̄ gan.ı̄ gan.ācariyo . . .?”93 Yet why is it
that this Hellenistic king wants to speak with such a pandit? Allegedly he wishes to have his
doubts dispelled,94 but even a cursory reading of the text proves that knowledge is not the
king’s original, primary goal. He is interested in metaphysical questions only when his duties
as king are completed. He first marshals and reviews his troops and then, as the daylight
lingers, searches for a worthwhile pastime. There is ample time for διατριβή. It becomes
clear after each of the initial discussions with the pandits Purān.a Kassapa, Makkhali Gosāla,
and Āyupāla that the king’s interest is agonistic. These conversations end with a small dance
of victory by Milinda, as if he had just scored a touchdown in the National Football League:
And so King Milinda, . . . clapping his hands, shouted to the Yonakas: “India is indeed an empty
thing, as empty as chaff; there is no śraman or brahman who can confer with me to dispel my
doubts . . .”95
This declaration comes after the interlocutor is reduced to silence and unable to respond.
It is a state comparable to Socratic aporia, and several Platonic arguments do result in a
similar inability to answer, but, of course, Plato’s Socrates never rejoices in the silence of his
discussants.96 To show that the exclamation is not made out of disappointment on the part
of the king, the reader is allowed to learn his inner motivation. Milinda is anxious when his
retinue seems neither embarrassed nor hesitant at the silence of the pandits, for he guesses
that the Yonakas know of yet another pandit who may challenge him still and ultimately
dispel his doubts.97 That last sage, as one would expect, is Nāgasena.
92 I am setting aside Tarn’s claim that the Pāli text is based on a shorter Greek original. I view the claim as
neither proven or disproven.
93 Mil. 1.10: “Is there some pandit, either śraman or brahman, a teacher of a large school or order . . .” See also
1.14, 1.37, 1.39.
94 Mil. 1.10 et aliis: . . . kankham pativinetum . . .
. .
95 Mil. 1.39: atha kho milindo rājā . . . apphotetvā ukkuttham katvā yonake etadavoca: “tuccho vata bho
. . .
jambudı̄po, palāpo vata bho jambudı̄po, natthi koci saman.o vā brāhman.o vā yo mayā saddhim . sallapitum . ussahati
kankham . pat.ivinetun” ti | See also 1.14.
96 See, for example, Gorgias 506b-c, when Callicles refuses to respond to the questions of Socrates on justice,
or the Protagoras at 335a, 348b, and 360e, where the namesake of the dialogue balks at Socrates’ questioning, or the
final scenes of the Charmides and Euthyphro which end without resolution of the central question.
97 Mil. 1.39.
272 David H. Sick
Milinda in fact has a perplexing relationship with his 500 companions. Why would he
expect his escort to be embarrassed at the dialectic defeat of the most well-known pandits? We
must assume that the Yonakas are cheering against their king, and, indeed, when Nāgasena
finally resolves one of Milinda’s tricky questions, the Yonakas interject, “honouring the
wonderful deed” of the monk: “Now, Great King, answer that if you can”.98 We are still left
wondering why a group who owes its economic and political position to its association with
a powerful individual would hope for the defeat of that individual in a theological debate.
In this instance, there would seem to be two probable explanations. Either the Yonakas
themselves have Buddhist sympathies or, in a typically Greek manner, they are barracking
an undefeated favourite in a contest of argument.99 The internal evidence is not decisive in
choosing between these two options. The Yonakas plainly know more about the local sages,
for Milinda turns to them to find the most highly-regarded individuals. Yet, one of the more
prominent member of Milinda’s retinue, Anantakāya, or Antiochus in the Greek, converts
within the text itself.100 The four closest advisers, who are named, should be separated from
the nameless retinue, however; the advisers are not called Yonakas.
The term Yonaka- itself may be significant. As pointed out by Tarn and accepted by Gonda,
Yonaka- is rather rare in Pāli.101 The two scholars do, naturally, differ in their explanations of
the word’s origin. Tarn looks to an unattested Greek form ’lωνακóς, while Gonda argues
for a regular formation of Yona- from Sanskrit Yavana- and/or Old Persian Yauna-, since both
ava and au become o in Middle Indic and Iranian respectively. Neither posits a meaning for
the word which would help us interpret our Yonakas’ behaviour toward their king and his
dialectic conquests. If we accept that the standard term for Greeks in the period was indeed
Yona- and the common secondary suffix –ka- has been added to it (as rājaka- ‘little regal one,
prince’ derives from rāja- ‘king’), Yonaka- does not mean ‘Greek’ but ‘Grecian’. As –ka-
is sometimes used to form a diminutive, the best translation might even be ‘Greekling’.102
Yonaka- would be the Indic term for a native individual who has Hellenised in some way and
is therefore called Hellenistic. This conjecture is also supported by the use of the term in a
dedicatory inscription at a Buddhist temple-cave at Nasik.103 There, a certain Indrāgnidatta,
whose name is obviously Indic, endowed a chaitya hall in the name of his parents for the
“worship of all the Buddhas” (savabudhapūjāya), although he identifies himself as a Yonaka.
The king’s escorts, if they are also Hellenistic Buddhists, might therefore be doubly motivated
to cheer against their patron: they could be advocates of Buddhist doctrine but familiar with
the traditional liberal rules of argument among the Greeks. Even if this interpretation of
98 Mil. 2.1.1: evam vatte pañcasatā yonakā āyasmato nāgasenassa sādhu kāram datvā milindam rājānam
. . .
etadavocum . “idāni kho tvam. , mahārāja, sakkonto bhāsassū?” |
99 Socrates and his more famous interlocutors draw a crowd in several Platonic dialogues. One assumes the
audience was eager to see a battle of undefeated champions. The discussions with the sophist Protagoras and the
rhetorican Gorgias provide the best examples. Note also Apology 23c where Socrates comments upon the following
he has developed among the wealthy youth of Athens.
100 See Mil. 2.1.4.
101 Tarn, pp. 416–8; Gonda, “Origin of the Milindapañha”, pp. 45–47.
102 See Whitney’s grammar, pp. 466–469. Sanskrit Grammar, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, Mass., 1989). Lat. Graeculus
may also show a correlation between the diminutive and Hellenisation. See Juv. 3.78 and Petr. 76.10 where the
individuals identified as Graeculi are almost certainly not native Greeks but Hellenised Easterners.
103 Tarn, pp. 254–258, believes the individual to be a citizen of a Greek colony but does not recognise the
significance of the regular formation in Middle Indic. For the inscription itself, see Jas. Burgess, Report on the
Buddhist Cave Temples and their Inscriptions (Archaelogical Survey of Western India, IV) (London, 1883) pp. 114–115.
Yonaka- falls short, it is important to note the fluidity of the cultural borders in the world of
the Milinda. Individuals identified as Greek support the ideas of an Indian Buddhist instead
of those of their king, who is said to have been born in a certain Alexandria.104
The fact that the Milindapañha models itself in its first sections on an earlier work is also
crucial to interpreting its dialectic interactions. The Sāmaññaphala Sutta (= The Fruits of the
Life of a Śraman), which describes a discussion between another king, Ajātasattu of Māghadha,
and the Buddha himself, provides the necessary comparanda.105 In both dialogues, the
kings encounter the same preliminary interlocutors before meeting their respective central
one. Purān.a Kassapa, Makkhali Gosāla, Nigan.t.ha Nātaputta, Sañjaya Belat.t.haputta, Ajita
Kesakambala, Pakudha Kaccāyana are listed as the six pre-eminent pandits of the day, and
the language used to describe these sages is nearly identical. Each of the pandits is called
“head of a community or order, founder of a school, famous, of great repute, respected by
many people . . .” in both works.106 They are further distinguished by the common question
atthi ko ci pan.d.ito saman.o vā brāhman.o vā and the pat answer which follows it. These six are
the renowned (or notorious) heretics of the Buddhist tradition; their names and the schools
which they founded would have been known to a wide audience. Makkhali Gosāla was
the founder of the Ājı̄vikas, while Nigan.t.ha Nātaputta is synonymous with Mahāvı̄ra of the
Jains.107 They are not labelled as “heretics” per se in our texts but are differentiated from
the Buddhist sages by form of address. In the Milinda, the two later Buddhist interlocutors
of the king are honoured with the title thera-108 , and in the sutta, the Buddha himself
is predictably introduced in a wholly distinct manner at 92. The fact that the six named
pandits are śramans or brahmans but outside orthodox Buddhism argues strongly that Aśoka’s
guidelines for dialogues between sects should be applied. Lest there be any doubt, the Ājı̄vikas
and the Jains (Nigan.t.has) are identified as pāsam . d.ā on the seventh edict found on the Topra
pillar now at Delhi.109
In the event, Milinda, inexplicably, never meets the final four members of the list of
pandits, and, I believe, this lacuna in the plot argues for the chronological precedence of the
Sāmaññaphala Sutta. There would be little point to listing characters who do not occur in
a text; that list must therefore have some other significance, probably external to the text.
Through the very similar language and identical characters the audience is encouraged to
compare the discussions in the two works, and, since the sutta is older, we must assume that
it is the author or a later redactor of the Milindapañha who wants the audience to make this
comparison.110 It is the behaviour of the kings that is accentuated for analysis. By placing
104 For Milinda’s birthplace, see Mil. 3.7.4.

105 Noted by Rhys Davids, pp. 1:8n.2, 10n.3. I am referring to the Pāli version; it differs substantially from
the Chinese, Tibetan, and Sanskrit versions of the sutta. See MacQueen for a translation and comparison of the
different versions.
106 Sam. 91: sañghi ceva ganı̄ ca ganācariyo ca ñāto yasassı̄ titthakaro sādhusammato bahujanassa. In Suttapitaka
. . .
Dı̄ghanikāya, ed. J. Bloch, J. Filliozat, L. Renou (Paris, 1949). Mil. 1.11: sanghino gan.ino gan.ācariyakā ñātā yasassino
titthakarā sādhusammatā bahujanassa (in the plural, referring to all six pandits).
107 See MacQueen, pp. 148–168; C. Vogel, The Teachings of the Six Heretics (Abhandlungen für die Kunde des
Morgenlande XXXIX.4) (Wiesbaden, 1970); A.L. Basham, History and Doctrine of the Ajı̄vikas (London, 1951),
pp. 3–26, as well as Pande, Jaini, and Warder (n. 35 and n. 38 above) on the śraman.a movement generally.
108 Āyupala at 1.1.14 and Nāgasena later in the same section.
109 See sections Z and AA.
110 As I am concerned with Graeco-Indian relations generally and not the Milinda specifically, it makes little
difference whether a redactor or the author is drawing the comparison between the two kings. Some intellectual
274 David H. Sick
the two kings in an almost identical situation, with similar language, the author emphasises
the differences. For example, both kings begin their quest for knowledge or argument with
a comment on the beauty of the night and the familiar question to their companions:
Beautiful indeed is the moonlit night! What śraman or brahman may we . . .?111
The initial comment about the clarity of the moon seems inconsequential, but to those who
know the tradition, it would establish a common temporal setting to the two dialogues. We
learn in the Sāmaññaphala Sutta that Ajātasattu’s quest began on uposatha day, the fifteenth
day of the half month, the night of the full moon. As mentioned above, it was customary for
sects to converse with the extended community on this day, and it would thus be predictable
that the kings speak with pandits. We are furthered stirred to apply Aśoka’s guidelines for
debate, because he decreed that his own proclamation on the pillar at Sārnāth be read by the
lay followers, or upāsakā, on uposatha day.112
At the point we have stopped in our citation above the question changes and we find
that the goals in discussion of the two kings differ. We have seen that Milinda’s announced
goal is to speak with a pandit and resolve his uncertainty; in this instance he clarifies his
method, for he adds that he plans to approach the pandit to ask questions.113 Ajātasattu’s
approach is to be much more deferential: he intends first to honour the pandit and, in return
for this respect, he expects the brahman or śraman to purify or clarify his mind.114 Along
with this difference in objective comes a wide divergence in attitude toward and treatment
of the heretical pandits. As it turns out, Ajātasattu has actually met and conversed with all six
previously, and when each is suggested, his reaction is the same, since he is already familiar
with the problems in their philosophies and theologies. Each suggestion of a sage is met
with a rather formal proclamation of the king’s response: evam . vutte rājā māgadho ajātasattu
vedehı̄putto tun.hı̄ ahosi.115 He neither criticises nor praises the philosophers and is, in fact, a
fine model for Aśokan γκρ ’ άτια. Not even when he actually met the heretics did he argue
openly with them but kept his criticisms to himself, and his internal judgments were severe,
for he refers to Sañjaya Velat.t.haputta as the “most stupid, most confused of the śramans
and brahmans”.116 Yet, the king concludes his account of each discussion with the same
formulaic phrase:
with a knowledge of Pāli is pairing the two. The dating of the Milindapañha is difficult because of various lacunae
and probable insertions. The absolute termini are the second century BCE, because of the dates of the Greek king
Menander himself, and the fifth century CE, because of a mention by Buddhagosa. The date of Sāmaññaphala
Sutta depends upon its inclusion in the Buddhist canon. If one accepts the tradition of the Buddhist councils, the
sutta would fall, at the latest, in the third century BCE under Aśoka. The strongest evidence for the chronological
precedence of the sutta is the Milindapañha’s knowledge of the canon in general, although the Milinda’s canon differs
from the standard slightly. See Mil. 1.14 for a mention of the Tipit.aka. M. Winternitz, A History of Indian Literature,
trans. S. Ketar and H. Kuhn (Calcutta, 1933) II, pp. 15–17, 174–178. K.R. Norman, Pāli Literature (A History of
Indian Literature, vol. VII.2), ed. J. Gonda (Wiesbaden, 1983), pp. 7–8, 110–114.
111 Sam. 91/ Mil.1.14, 1.37: ramanı̄yā vata, bho, dosinā ratti | kam nu khavajja samanam vā brāhmanam vā. In
. . . . . .
the sutta the two sentences are not contiguous but close together. Ajātasattu comments on the beauty of the night
in several clauses.
112 See Sārnāth H in Hultzsch, pp. 161–164.
113 Mil.1.14, 1.37: . . . upasankameyyāma pañham pucchitum . . .
. .
114 Sam. 91: . . . payirupāseyyāma yan no payirupāsato cittam pası̄deyyā ti |
.
115 “So he spoke, and Ajātasattu Vedehı̄putta, the king of Māgadha, kept his silence.” At Sam. 91, repeated
after the introduction of each heretic.
116 Sam. 99: . . . samanabrāhmanānam sabbabālo sabbamūlho |
. . . .
And so I . . . neither pleased nor displeased, neither praising nor blaming, although dissatisfied,
wanting no word of dissatisfaction, understanding his words but not confounding them, rising
from my place, I departed.117
Ajātasattu’s silence is the key to our interpretation. We see that it is not a silence which
results from ignorance but out of self-control or even inner strength. It is not a matter of his
restraining desire, for he does not even want to correct the sages publicly, and he certainly
takes no joy in their perceived errors. His reaction is markedly different from the Greek
Milinda, and the author or redactor of the Milindapañha encourages his audience to compare
the behaviour of the two kings by repeating the key phrase: evam . vutte . . . tun.hı̄ ahosi. In the
Milinda, however, it is not the king who keeps silence but the pandits defeated in dialogue.
There is in fact an inversion of the formula of the plot. Once Makkhali Gosāla has apparently
been refuted by Milinda, he refuses to answer, and the exact same phrase is used to describe
his silence at Mil. 1.13: evam . vutte Gosālo tun.hı̄ ahosi. The questions of Milinda silence all
the sages who remain in his city, and even the bhikkus who take refuge in the Himalayas are
silent when asked to confront the king. The key phrase is in fact repeated several times in the
early sections of the dialogue.118 The author of the later text, by putting its main character
in a similar setting with some of the same subordinate characters and using similar if not
identical language, calls us to note the difference, and once we note that difference, we are
almost compelled to try to understand it. The easiest explanation comes from the obvious
difference between the two: Milinda is a Greek, while Ajātasattu is ethnically Indian. Greeks
behave differently and, to some extent, improperly, that is, the vacaguti- of which Aśoka
speaks is performed by the latter and certainly not the former.
There is therefore at least one bit of Greece in the Milinda: the major Greek character in
the dialogue behaves in a way that Indians and perhaps even the Greeks themselves would
find stereotypically Greek. This Greek failing, the inability to restrain speech, as if speaking
were a physical desire, we have now seen attested from several cultural perspectives of the
period. We find the criticism in the Milinda, an Indian cultural product; we find it in a Greek
cultural product, Palladius’ treaty on the brahmans, although it is put in the mouth of Indic
characters; we see also concern about it intensify in moral treatises of the Hellenistic period;
and finally we find it in a bi-cultural product, the Greek and Prākrit edicts of Aśoka.
III. Conclusions
According to our original goals, we intended to trace themes from the Aśokan writings to
both the East and West. Our study of the ascetism of silence has succeeded in that regard. We
followed a proverb on control of the tongue to numerous Hellenic outlets, and we noted a
concern for speech between sects, even those with Greek members, in the Milindapañha. We
previously suggested a reason why dialectic was such a concern for the Greeks and perhaps
why they appeared overly-talkative to their Indian neighbours. We have yet to explain Aśoka’s
interest in dialectic or the reasons for its prominence in Hellenistic India from a standpoint
117 Sam. 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99: so kho aham . . . neva abhinandim nappatikkosim anabhinanditvā appatikkositvā
. . . . .
anattamano anattamanavācam . aniccharetvā tam eva vācam . anuggan.hanto anikkujjento ut.t.hāyāsanā pakkāmim |
118 See Mil. 1.15–16 for the silence of the brahmans, śramans, and bhikkus. Also 1. 12 and 1.39 for other
variations on the recurring phrase.
276 David H. Sick
in the Indian cultural tradition. Our investigations suggest one contributing factor to this
prominence, and that factor is related to the populism of the śramans and the role for the
king in their public debates.
Our earlier comments chastised Milinda for failing to adhere to Aśokan standards, but, in
truth, according to the prescriptions found in the twelfth edict, both Milinda and Ajātasattu
failed in their dialectic. Surely Milinda wished to glorify himself, and thus, according to
XII.H, harmed his own cause instead.119 Ajātasattu, on the other hand, by maintaining a
public silence, did not allow for the exchange of ideas encouraged by Aśoka.120 We might
suggest an Aristotelian mean between the two, but, as kings, they are a special case. Their
discussion with the sages, just as that of Alexander, is not conducted as an interaction
between social equals. This fact is acknowledged in the Milindapañha. After the initial
discussion between Milinda and Nāgasena, the bhikku agrees only conditionally to continue
the discussion: the king must change his goal and method of dialectic. Milinda has been using
a dialectic which the monk terms rājavāda- ‘the talk of kings’ but in order to continue the
discussion profitably a dialectic termed pan.d.itavāda- ‘the talk of sages’ must be employed.121
The seminal difference between these two forms of speech is not found in the approach to
dialogue but the effect upon the participants. When pandits discuss and a point is made in
refutation, “they do not become angry because of it”.122 Nāgasena claims, however, that
if an interlocutor refutes a king, he is likely to receive a fine or even worse. Alexander’s
threat to kill the gymnosophist who gave the worst response to his questioning would be
in keeping with the customs of rājavāda.123 One wonders in fact how Aśoka himself, when
he visited the śramans and brahmans on his tours for the promotion of dhamma, conducted
such dialogues.124
Yet Milinda exceeds Alexander as a philosopher, in that he agrees to continue the
conversation under the rules prescribed by Nāgasena, but ultimately he is trapped between
the two types of dialectic, between rājavāda and pan.d.itavāda. In a scene which is one of
several likely candidates for the original ending of the work,125 the king and the monk
meet on the morning after a late-night discussion. The basic tenets of Buddhism have
held sound against the questions and logical attacks of the Greek inquisitor, and both
discussants spent the remainder of the night alone reviewing the course of the argument.
That morning, there is no resentment nor exultation in an eristic victory, only satisfaction
119 XII.H: “For whosoever praises his own sect (or) blames other sects, –all (this) out of pure devotion to his
own sect, (i.e.) with a view to glorifying his own sect,– if he is acting thus, he rather injures his own sect very
severely”. (Hultzsch’s translation) Cf. Greek 6–8: O–ὶ δ’ ν αυτo‘ ’
ὺςπαινäσιν, τoὺς δ ` πλας
´ ´
ψγωσιν
φιλoτιµóτρoν διαπράτ[τ]oνται, βoυλóµνoι παρὰ τoὺς λoιπoὺς γλάµψαι, ’ πoλὺ δ ` µλλoν
‘
βλάπτoυ[σι] αυτo ύς.
120 XII.I: “Therefore self-control (sayama-) alone is meritorious, (i.e.) that they should both hear and obey
each other’s morals (dhrama-)”. (Hultzsch’s translation) Cf. Greek 8: ρπι ´ δ ` αλλ
’ ήλoυς θαυµάζιν καὶ
’ ήλων διδάγµατα παραδχσθα[
τὰ αλλ ´ ι].
121 Mil. 2.1.3.
122 Mil. 2.1.3: . . . viseso pi kayirati, pativiseso pi kayirati, na ca tena panditā kuppanti . . . “ . . . a distinction is
. ..
made and then a counter-distinction, and the pandits do not become angry on account of it . . .”
123 Plut. Alex. 64.1
124 See edict VIII and pillar text VI from Rāmpurvā.
125 Mil. 3.7.18. This is where both Finot, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1992) and Pathak end their editions. Such an ending
would maintain the parallel with the Sāmaññaphala Sutta. On the possible endings, see I. B. Horner’s edition
(Oxford, 1963), pp. xxvii-xxxi.
that the right questions were asked and the appropriate answers given. The phrase “All
was well asked by me/King Milinda, all was well solved by me/the venerable one”126 is
repeated with slight variations in the scene and attributed to both characters. It serves as a
summation to their respective reviews of the argument. Milinda’s motivation here can be
explained by both cultural traditions: he, in a sense, fulfills the tenets of Indian pan.d.itavāda
as well as avoids the hatred of argument (µισoλoγία), the tocsin of Socrates from his
deathbed.127
Milinda cannot quite give himself over to pan.d.itavāda or follow the Socratic vocation
entirely. In keeping with Ajātasattu, whom the Buddha claims would have attained the
eye of dhamma (dhammacakkhu), a significant step on the road to enlightenment, if he had
not killed his father to succeed to the throne,128 and Alexander, who said “If I were not
Alexander, I would be Diogenes”,129 the Indo-Greek king claims he would be quickly killed
by his many enemies if he were to renounce the world and follow Nāgasena. In all three
cases the duties and privileges of rule are given priority over the fruits of renunciation. From
the perspective of the gymnosophists, the monarchs mistake the nature of true freedom.
The analogy which Milinda uses to describe his situation is one of the most poignant in the
dialogue:
Just as . . . a lion, the king of beasts, trapped in a golden cage is ever staring outward, I . . . too,
although I live as a householder, am ever staring outward.130
Milinda sees the value of the life of the recluse, for it has been proven by argument, but
he is constrained to fulfil his role as king. Although kingship has its worldly advantages, it
ultimately prevents one from attaining the summum bonum.
There is obviously a mean between rajavāda and pan.d.itavāda, between kingship and
monkhood, a “middle way”, so to speak. One can become a lay follower of a sect and
its tenets, an upāsaka, or ‘one who sits close by’ in the Indic context, and this status is,
in fact, the one which Aśoka himself pursued. At the beginning of the first minor rock
edict the Mauryan emperor proclaims that he has been an upāsaka for two and a half years,
and although in several other inscriptions he displays a close association with the Buddhist
131
sam. gha, he never foregoes the propagation of a non-sectarian dhamma. With regard to our
132
literary kings, Ajātasattu also chooses this course, but the outcome for Milinda depends
on which ending of the work one accepts.
126 Sabbam . mayā/Milindena raññā supucchitam . , sabbam

. mayā/bhadantena suvissajjitan-ti.
127 Pl. Phd. 89d.
128 Sam. 140.
129 Plut. Alex. 15.3: ‘Aλλὰ µὴνγ ’ ώ,’ πν, ‘ι’ µὴ λξανδρoς
´ ’ µην, ιoγνης
η ´ ’ µην.’
νη
130 Mil. 3.7.18: seyathā . . . sı̄ho migarājā suvannapañjare pakkhito pi bahimukho yeva hoti, evam—eva kho
..
. . . . kiñcāpi agāram
‘ham . ajjhāvasāmi, bahimukho yeva pana acchāmi.
131 See R. Thapar, “Aśoka and Buddhism as Reflected in the Aśokan Edicts”, in Aśoka 2300, ed. H.B.
Chowdhury (Calcutta, 1997), pp. 71–80. The volume also contains several essays by individuals who argue for a
more significant role for Aśoka in the development of Buddhism.
132 Sam. 139.
278 David H. Sick
A role for philosophy among the general public, even among the leaders of that public,
may be the largest debt western philosophy owes the East. The explosion of philosophical
schools in the Hellenistic period did not create an empire of lamp-carrying, pot-dwelling,
publicly masturbating Cynics but a society of upāsakā, in which any generally-educated
individual might claim allegiance to one school or another. Consequently we know Caesar
as an Epicurean, Marcus Aurelius as a Stoic, and Cicero as an amalgam of all the schools of
his day.

When Socrates Met The Buddha: Greek and Indian Dialectic in Hellenistic Bactria and India

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When Socrates Met The Buddha: Greek and Indian Dialectic in Hellenistic Bactria and India

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When Socrates met the Buddha:

Greek and Indian Dialectic in Hellenistic

Bactria and India

JRAS, Series 3, 17, 3 (2007), pp. 253–278

doi:10.1017/S1356186307007249 Printed in the United Kingdom

II. Tracing Themes in the Greek and Prākrit Proclamations of Aśoka

A. Dhamma and υ' σ´βια

16 Derrett, “Greece and India”, at pp. 40–43, 57–63.

31 Adrados, pp. 11–14.

C. Speaking and Not Speaking: Controlling the Tongue in Hellenistic Greece

61 Ar., Nu. 97–98, etc.

85 Line 22: καὶ τιν ’ τoι̃ς ’ θνσίν ι’ σιν. . .

E. Milinda and the Ends and Rules of Discussion

104 For Milinda’s birthplace, see Mil. 3.7.4.

126 Sabbam . mayā/Milindena raññā supucchitam . , sabbam

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When Socrates Met The Buddha: Greek and Indian Dialectic in Hellenistic Bactria and India

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Original Title

Copyright

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When Socrates Met The Buddha: Greek and Indian Dialectic in Hellenistic Bactria and India

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Copyright:

Available Formats

When Socrates met the Buddha:

Greek and Indian Dialectic in Hellenistic

Bactria and India

JRAS, Series 3, 17, 3 (2007), pp. 253–278

doi:10.1017/S1356186307007249 Printed in the United Kingdom

II. Tracing Themes in the Greek and Prākrit Proclamations of Aśoka

A. Dhamma and υ' σ´βια

16 Derrett, “Greece and India”, at pp. 40–43, 57–63.

31 Adrados, pp. 11–14.

C. Speaking and Not Speaking: Controlling the Tongue in Hellenistic Greece

61 Ar., Nu. 97–98, etc.

85 Line 22: καὶ τι ν ’ τoι̃ς ’ θν σίν ι’ σιν. . .

E. Milinda and the Ends and Rules of Discussion

104 For Milinda’s birthplace, see Mil. 3.7.4.

126 Sabbam . mayā/Milindena raññā supucchitam . , sabbam

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85 Line 22: καὶ τιν ’ τoι̃ς ’ θνσίν ι’ σιν. . .