Menander I Soter (, ; ), sometimes called Menander the Great, was an Indo-Greek king (reigned /155Bopearachchi (1998) and (1991), respectively. The first date is estimated by Osmund Bopearachchi and R. C. Senior, the other Boperachchi –130 BC) who administered a large territory in the northwestern regions of the Indian subcontinent and Central Asia. Menander is noted for having become a patron of Greco-Buddhism and is regarded as the greatest and most well-known of the Indo-Greek kings.
Menander might have initially been a prince or king of Bactria.. After conquering the Punjab, as far as Taxila and Sagala, he established an empire which stretched from the Kabul River in the west to the Ravi River in the east, and from the Swat River valley in the north to Arachosia (the Helmand Province). The Greek geographer Strabo wrote that he "conquered more tribes than Alexander the Great" in India. Ancient Indian writers indicate that he possibly launched expeditions southward into Rajputana (Rajasthan, Gujarat and Sindh) and central India (Gujarat and Malwa) and as far east down the Ganges River Valley as Pataliputra (Patna).
Large numbers of Menander's coins have been unearthed, attesting to both the flourishing commerce and longevity of his realm. Menander was also a patron of Buddhism. His conversations with the Buddhist sage Nagasena are recorded in the influential Buddhist work, the Milinda Panha ("The Questions of King Milinda"; panha meaning "question" in Pali). After his death in 130 BC, he was succeeded by his wife Agathoclea (possibly daughter of Agathocles or Eucratides) who ruled as regent for his son Strato I. Buddhist tradition relates that he handed over his kingdom to his son and retired from the world, but Plutarch says that he died in camp while on a military campaign, and that his remains were divided equally between the cities to be enshrined in monuments, probably stupas, across his realm.
Reign
Menander was born into a Greek family. One source states that his birthplace was a village called Kalasi adjacent to Alexandria of the Caucasus (present day Bagram, Afghanistan) but another states that it was near Sagala (modern Sialkot in the Punjab, Pakistan). His territories covered Bactria (modern-day Balkh Province) and extended to modern-day Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab. Gnaeus Pompeius Trogus and Justin call him a king of India. According to Plutarch he was a king of Bactria, and Strabo includes him among Bactrian Greek conquerors. He may have actually ruled over Bactria and may have helped Demetrius II Nicator, the Seleucid king, during the Seleucid–Parthian Wars. From the Hindu Kush, he expanded his kingdom to Gandhara and perhaps Kashmir. His capital is supposed to have been Sagala, a prosperous city in northern Punjab (believed to be modern Sialkot, Pakistan). According to Apollodorus of Artemita, as quoted by Strabo, the conquest of India by the Bactrian Greeks was effected mainly by Menander:
Accounts describe Indo-Greek campaigns to Sakala, Mathura, Panchala, Saketa (Ayodhya), and potentially Pataliputra. The sage Patanjali, in his Mahabhashya around 150 BC, describes a failed campaign of Menander as far as Mathura, this is also later reported in Kalidasa's drama, Mālavikāgnimitram. The Hathigumpha inscription inscribed by Kharavela the King of Kalinga also places the Yavanas, or Indo-Greeks, in Mathura. Kharavela states to have forced the demoralized Yavana army to retreat back to Mathura:
Menander may have campaigned as far as the Shunga capital Pataliputra resulting in a conflict. The religious scripture Yuga Purana, which describes events in the form of a prophecy, states:
Strabo also suggests that Indo-Greek conquests went up to the Shunga capital Pataliputra in northeastern India (today Patna):
The events and results of these campaigns are unknown. Surviving epigraphical inscriptions during this time such as the Hathigumpha inscription states that Kharavela sacked Pataliputra. Furthermore, numismatics from the Mitra dynasty are concurrently placed in Mathura during the time of Menander. Their relationship is unclear, but the Mithra may potentially be vassals.
In the West, Menander seems to have repelled the invasion of the dynasty of Greco-Bactrian usurper Eucratides, and pushed them back as far as the Paropamisadae, thereby consolidating the rule of the Indo-Greek kings in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent.
The Milinda Panha gives some glimpses of his military methods:
Generous findings of coins testify to the prosperity and extent of his empire: (with finds as far as Britain) the finds of his coins are the most numerous and the most widespread of all the Indo-Greek kings. Precise dates of his reign, as well as his origin, remain elusive, however. Guesses among historians have been that Menander was either a nephew or a former general of the Greco-Bactrian king Demetrius I, but the two kings are now thought to be separated by at least thirty years. Menander's predecessor in Punjab seems to have been the king Apollodotus I.
Menander's empire survived him in a fragmented manner until the last Greek king Strato II disappeared around 10 AD.
The 1st-2nd century AD Periplus of the Erythraean Sea further testifies to the reign of Menander and the influence of the Indo-Greeks in India:
According to numismatist Joe Cribb, the accounts of Menander's kingdom stretching as far as Sialkot, is hard to believe, as there is no numismatic evidence of him east of Taxila, even more hard is to believe is stretching even further east as thought earlier by historians based upon Indian references, which most likely are referring to Kushans. However, numerous silver and copper coins (and Hellenistic pottery shards) of Menander have been found, including the Siranwali hoard found near Sialkot, and in the Sonipat hoard from present-day Haryana. Additional corroboration for mentions of Indo-Greek expeditions into the Gangetic plains may be furnished by the Yavanarajya inscription discovered in Mathura, and discoveries of Menander's coins in western Uttar Pradesh including the Pachkhura hoard of coins unearthed near the Yamuna River in Hamirpur district, Uttar Pradesh, and the unearthing of a clay pot filled with coins of preceding kings (Diodotus I, Diodotus II, and Euthydemus I) in Vaishali district, Bihar.
Bajaur is the only place where inscriptions of Menander have been found. However, large numbers of Menander's coins have been unearthed, mostly of silver and bronze, attesting to both the duration of his reign and the flourishing commerce of his realm. According to Buddhist tradition he handed over his kingdom to his son and retired from the world, but Plutarch relates that he died in camp while on a military campaign.
Menander and Buddhism
The Milinda Panha
According to tradition, Menander embraced the Buddhist faith, as described in the Milinda Panha, a classical Pali Buddhist text on the discussions between Milinda and the Buddhist sage Nāgasena, the Milinda Panha's style may have been influenced by Plato's Dialogues. He is described as constantly accompanied by an elite guard of 500 Greek ("Yavana") soldiers, and two of his counsellors are named Demetrius and Antiochus.
In the Milinda Panha, Menander is introduced as:
Buddhist tradition relates that, following his discussions with Nāgasena, Menander adopted the Buddhist faith:
He then handed over his kingdom to his son and retired from the world:
There is however little besides this testament to indicate that Menander in fact abdicated his throne in favour of his son. Based on numismatic evidence, William Tarn believed that he in fact died, leaving his wife Agathocleia to rule as a regent, until his son Strato could rule properly in his stead. Despite the success of his reign, it is clear that after his death, his "loosely hung" empire splintered into a variety of Indo-Greek successor kingdoms, of various sizes and stability.
His legacy as a Buddhist arhat reached the Greco-Roman world and Plutarch writes:
The above seems to corroborate the claim:
Accounts From India
A 2nd century BC relief from a Buddhist stupa in Bharhut, in eastern Madhya Pradesh (today at the Indian Museum in Calcutta), the Bharhut Yavana, represents a foreign soldier with the curly hair of a Greek and the royal headband with flowing ends of a Greek king, and maybe a depiction of Menander. In his right hand, he holds a branch of ivy, a symbol of Dionysos. Also, parts of his dress, with rows of geometrical folds, are characteristically Hellenistic in style. On his sword appears the Buddhist symbol of the three jewels, or Triratana. A Buddhist reliquary found in Bajaur, the Shinkot casket, bears a dedicatory inscription referring to "the 14th day of the month of Kārttika" of a certain year in the reign of "Mahārāja Minadra" ("Great King Menander"):
According to an ancient Sri Lankan source, the Mahavamsa, Greek monks seem to have been active proselytizers of Buddhism during the time of Menander: the Yona (Greek) Mahadhammarakkhita () is said to have come from "Alasandra" (thought to be Alexandria of the Caucasus, the city founded by Alexander the Great, near today's Kabul) with 30,000 monks for the foundation ceremony of the Maha Thupa ("Great stupa") at Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka, during the 2nd century BC:
Buddhist constructions
A coin of Menander I was found in the second oldest stratum (GSt 2) of the Butkara stupa suggesting a period of additional constructions during the reign of Menander.Handbuch der Orientalistik, Kurt A. Behrendt, BRILL, 2004, p.49 sig It is thought that Menander was the builder of the second oldest layer of the Butkara stupa, following its initial construction during the Maurya Empire."King Menander, who built the penultimate layer of the Butkara stupa in the first century BCE, was an Indo-Greek."in Empires of the Indus: The Story of a River, Alice Albinia, 2012
These elements tend to indicate the importance of Buddhism within Greek communities in northwestern India, and the prominent role Greek Buddhist monks played in them, probably under the sponsorship of Menander.
Coinage
Menander has left behind an immense corpus of silver and bronze coins, more so than any other Indo-Greek king, indicating the length of his long reign and a flourishing trade during it, and are the main source of his history. During his reign, the fusion between Indian and Greek coin standards reached its apogee. The wheel engraved on some of Menander's coins may be the Buddhist Dharmachakra. The coins feature the legend ( / Kharoshthi: MAHARAJA TRATARASA MENADRASA). According to Bopearachchi, his silver coinage begins with a rare series of drachma depicting on the obverse Athena and on the reverse her attribute the owl. The weight and monograms of this series match those of earlier king Antimachus II, indicating that Menander succeeded Antimachus II. On the next series, Menander introduces his own portrait, a hitherto unknown custom among Indian rulers. The reverse features his dynastical trademark: the so-called Athena Alkidemos throwing a thunderbolt, an emblem used by many of Menander's successors and also the emblem of the Antigonid kings of Macedonia. In a further development, Menander changed the legends from circular orientation to the arrangement seen on coin 4 to the right. This modification ensured that the coins could be read without being rotated, and was used without exception by all later Indo-Greek kings.
These alterations were possibly an adaption on Menander's part to the Indian coins of the Bactrian Eucratides I, who had conquered the westernmost parts of the Indo-Greek kingdom, and are interpreted by Bopearachchi as an indication that Menander recaptured these western territories after the death of Eucratides.