The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s4.249

c10.s4.249

It has however often been claimed that Menander’s coinage displays Buddhist ideas, both in its use of the title δίκαιος, ‘Just’, and of the symbol of the eight-spoked wheel on one of his bronze issues;⁷ but this view must, I think, be rejected. Menander’s regular title on his coinage, already explained (pp. 175 *sq.*), was *Soter*; the coins with δίκαιος are very rare, and the elderly portrait on the silver issue shows that he only adopted this title toward the very end of his reign.⁸ Certainly δίκαιος is translated by Dharmika in the Kharoshthi legend, but the Dharmaraja or ‘King of Justice’ has his place in Brahman no less than in Buddhist literature. The first Hellenistic king to use δίκαιος, Agathocles, had used it only on his pedigree coins, which were propaganda for Greeks and meant nothing to Indians; it signified ‘just’ and nothing more, and I see no reason for supposing that on Menander’s coins it referred to the Buddhist Dhamma. To Indians it would indeed signify that, like Demetrius (p. 178), he was a Dharmaraja or King of Justice, but that was not specifically Buddhist; the tradition that he ruled with equity found its way even into Plutarch.¹