The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c30.s2.24

v1.c30.s2.24

In the illustrations which are brought to bear on the philosophical topics under discussion, certain facts of a more general interest emerge. Milinda, it appears, was born at the village of Kalasi in the *dvīpa* of Alasanda. Kalasi cannot be identified; but the *dvīpa* of Alasanda is no doubt the district of Alexandria-under-the-Caucasus—Alasanda of the Yonas, as it is called in the Mahāvaṁsa (XXIX, 39). Translators have persistently rendered *dvīpa* by 'island,' and have thus added to the difficulties of identifying the site; but this is only one of the meanings of this word, which often denotes the land lying between two rivers—the Persian *duāb*: the district of Çākala, for example, in the Rechna Doāb between the Chenāb and the Rāvi, is often called *Çākala-dvīpa*. There is no reason therefore why the term *Alasanda-dvīpa* should not be applied to the country between the Panjshir and Kābul rivers, in which the ruins of Alexander's city have been recognised near Chārikār. No other of the numerous Alexandrias has an equal claim to the honour of being Menander's birthplace, which, in reply to Nāgasena's question, the king himself describes as being 200 *yojanas* distant from Çākala. The *yojana* has very different values according to the period and the locality in which it is used; but there is good evidence of the use in Buddhist books of a short *yojana*, equal to about two and a half English miles; and an estimate of 500 miles for the route from Chārikār to Siālkot seems to be fairly correct (p. 543). The statement thus incidentally preserved by the Milindapañha has the appearance of truth. Some branch of the family of Euthydemus would naturally be settled in the district, which was strategically important as constituting the connecting link between Bactria and India, and we may reasonably conclude that Menander, like Apollodotus, belonged to this branch.