The Greeks in Bactria and India c12.146

c12.146

One further point. The earliest list of Alexander-questions could consist solely of *aporiai* because it was only a small incident in a long story; but it is hard to conceive of a Greek writing a Questions of Menander with a formal introduction merely to make the king put *aporiai* to a Buddhist sage. The Questions of Ptolemy II is a serious enough document, even though it has not got rid of *aporiai* altogether;¹ and the Greek Questions of Menander must surely have contained serious questions as well as *aporiai*, questions not perhaps specifically connected with Buddhism, but at least concerned with such commonplaces of philosophy as might interest both peoples. If so, the legend of Menander as a great Buddhist monarch might not be purely Indian; Greeks might have played a part in its formation. But that would not prove that the Menander of history took a personal interest in Buddhism (see pp. 268 *sq.*).