The Greeks in Bactria and India c12.53

c12.53

This conclusion is not affected by the very different version of the Chinese translation several centuries later, which makes him born a prince.¹ He had already, in Part II of the Pali Milinda, become a prince, descended from a long line of Kshatriya ancestors;² it is usual enough, in the successive stages of a story, for a commoner who achieves fame to turn into a prince, but no one has ever known a prince turn into a commoner. That is simple; but the Chinese translator has gone on to alter the locality of Menander’s birth. He describes Alasanda as 2000 yojanas from Sāgala instead of 200 (i.e. he makes it Alexandria in Egypt) and makes Menander born heir to the throne of a country near Alasanda beside the sea.³ It is indeed unfortunate that a number of French scholars should have championed this as against the Pali version, and should have believed that Alasanda from the start meant Alexandria in Egypt and that the Pali writer altered an original 2000 into 200.⁴ If the Pali text be the original, such a theory is of course indefensible. But even if not, the theory first violates the sound canon of historical criticism that the smaller number is to be preferred unless there be very good reason to the contrary, and then lands us in a historical absurdity; for where does anyone propose to find, near Alexandria in Egypt about 210-200 B.C., a country on the sea ruled by a Greek dynasty? The matter is really free from difficulty. The Chinese translator had never heard of Alexandria of the Caucasus; if he had heard of the capital of the Paropamisadae at all, he would only know the name Kapisa (p. 433 n. 1 and App. 6); to him Alasanda meant, and could only mean, the only Alexandria he knew of, Alexandria in Egypt, and he altered 200 yojanas to 2000 accordingly, but he called attention to this by recording the distance in yojanas as well as in Chinese li, which should put anyone upon his guard. Also he knew nothing himself about Menander, but he found that in the book he was translating he was called a great king, and that the second part of that book made him born a prince, so he inevitably made him born a prince also; and as he did know that Alexandria in Egypt was on the sea, and as Menander’s birthplace was said to be near Alexandria, he naturally made him a prince of a country on the sea. It is very simple if taken in the proper order.