The Questions of Milinda (Milindapañha)

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The Questions of Milinda

(Milindapañha)

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Title:	The Questions of Milinda
Genre:	Dialogue
Written:	ca. 2nd cent. (Eng. 2025)
Length:	1046 pages
Original in:	Pali
Availability:	The Questions of Milinda - US
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	Las preguntas de Milinda - España

	from: Bookshop.org (US)

Pali title: Milindapañha
Translated and with an Introduction by Maria Heim
Previously translated by T.W.Rhys Davids, as The Questions of King Milinda (1890, 1894), and I.B.Horner, as Milinda's Questions (1963-4)
This is a bilingual edition, with the original Pali printed facing the English translation

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Our Assessment:

B : impressive in scope and range, but not enough true debate

See our review for fuller assessment.

The complete review's Review:

As also mentioned, and quoted in part, in Maria Heim's Introduction, previous translator T.W.Rhys Davids had gone so far as to say in the Introduction to the first volume of his own translation (1890) that:

I venture to think that the ‘Questions of Milinda’ is undoubtedly the master-piece of Indian prose, and indeed is the best book of its class, from a literary point of view, that had then been produced in any country.

He also judged:

But in ancient Indian literature there are only two or three works which can at all compare with it. It ought not to seem odd that these also are Buddhist and Pâli; that is, that they come from the same school. And while the Dîgha Nikiyâ may be held to excel it in stately dignity, the Visuddhi Magga in sustained power, and the Gâtaka book in varied humour, the palm will probably be eventually given to the ‘Questions of Milinda’ as a work of art.

Davids doubled down in the Introduction to the second volume of the translation (1894), his closing words there:

And I still adhere to the opinions expressed in the former Introduction that the work, as it stands in the Pâli, is of its kind (that is, as a book of apologetic controversy) the best in point of style that had then been written in any country; and that it is the masterpiece of Indian prose.

       The qualifications should, of course, be noted -- both the time when it was written (even as the work cannot be dated very precisely) as well as the form --, as the best and best-known Indian works are in verse (including the grand epics) or, later, dramas. The Questions of Milinda is largely presented in dialogue -- though not so much a back-and-forth (as, for example, in the Platonic dialogues) as rather a very long question-and-answer series, as King Milinda -- possibly based on Menander I, who: "reigned in the middle of the first century B.C.E. from his capital at Sagala (thought to be present-day Sialkot in Pakistan)", as explained by Heim -- poses question after question of Nagasena, the figure the god Mahasena was reborn as, who had returned to earthly ways and had become: "the head of the community, a leader, and a celebrated and renowned professor. He was learned and highly regarded by many people, experienced, intelligent, accomplished, clever, wise, and educated".
       As summed up at the end, the work presents: "the 262 questions of Milinda, handed down in this book in six chapters adorned with twenty-two parts" (noting also that another forty-two points "have not been handed down" (with Heim noting that: "the number of neglected items is 38, not 42, in the manuscripts available to us")). The Questions of Milinda is presented divided into six sections. Heim titles the first: 'Former Connections', the bulk of which is presented as: 'The Backstory', which introduces the backstories of Milinda and Nagasena and how they came to these question-and-answer sessions (Davids has this part as: 'The Secular Narrative'). The second section offers: 'Questions for Milinda' -- divided into two parts: 'Questions of Defining Characteristics' and: 'Questions for Resolving Doubt'. (Davids presents these as separate books in his version: 'The Distinguishing Characteristics of Ethical Qualities' and: 'The Removal of Difficulties'.) The third is by far the longest section: 'Ram Horn Dilemmas I: The Great Chapter' (presented by Davids as: 'The Solving of Dilemmas'). The fourth section is on: 'A Question Resolved by Inference', followed by: 'Ram Horn Dilemmas II: Questions and Discussions about Yogis', and the final section then is of: 'Questions and Discussions of Analogies'.
       The narrative first section is the most straightforwardly appealing, charting the courses of the two main characters and how they come to engage in the later discussions. King Milinda is: "learned, experienced, intelligent, and able, and he observed at the proper times all the duties, ceremonies, yogic practices, and mantras related to the past, present, and future" -- but he still has some doubts and questions (lots of questions, as we will see ...), and so he sets out hoping to find someone: "who is able to converse with me and dispel my uncertainties". Such a person proves hard to find -- and Milinda becomes quite a pain in the ass among the Buddhist community, with one revered member eventually complaining to Sakka, king of the gods:

As a speaker he is hard to approach, hard to beat, and widely recognized as the best among the various exalted teachers of the day. He comes to the community of monks, lobs questions based on wrong views and doctrines, and harasses us.

The solution they hit on is to ask the god Mahasena to head back down into the mortal realm, and in reborn form take on Milinda; he's the only one they think is capable of: "dismantling the arguments of King Milinda". Reborn as Nagasena, he becomes wise and learned, and is eventually challenged to take on Milinda -- who is still not having much luck finding anyone to answer his questions. Finally, the opportunity comes for Milinda to meet Nagasena -- and from the first he is properly awed:

At the mere mention of the sound "Nagasena," King Milinda became afraid and stupefied; his hair stood on end. He turned to Devamantiya: "Is this monk Nagasena really able to converse with me ?"

Before they begin any exchange, Nagasena does, however, set some ground rules:

     The king said: "Nagasena, sir, will you converse with me ?"
     "Great king, if you converse with the arguments of scholars, I will converse with you. But if you converse the way kings argue, I will not."
     "How, Nagasena, do scholars converse ?"
     "In the debates of scholars, great king, there are entangling and unraveling, refuting and countering, and agreeing and disagreeing, but scholars do not get angry. This is how scholars converse."
     "And how do kings converse, sir ?"
     "Great king, when kings debate, one account is approved and whoever disputes it invites punishment -- 'Have him punished !' This is how kings converse."
     "I will converse with the arguments of scholars, and not the way kings argue. Please speak freely as though talking with a monk, novice, layman. or attendant, and in this way speak freely and have no fear."

       Throughout, then, Nagasena does continue to address Milinda as 'great king' and the like, and often brings up examples of royal power and experience, so Milinda's (powerful) position and identity is certainly never entirely forgotten, but, aside from polite deference, Nagasena does otherwise -- and with great patience -- treat him as one might a pupil. This isn't an exchange among equals, and there's little that comes close to debate. While Milinda does have many questions, including about many facts that seem to him, at first glance, puzzling or contradictory, he is also generally immediately satisfied by Nagasena's explanations and answers; Milinda has very few follow-up questions throughout. (Disappointingly, one of the questions that actually remains unanswered by Nagasena -- presumably taken as rhetorical -- is: "Reverend Nagasena, who else when asked this question would reply with such wisdom ?" It would be interesting to know who else Nagasena thought might be up to the job .....)
       In the second section, Milinda does ask for more examples of various points: bhiyyo opammaṃ karohīti ("Another analogy, please") -- with slight variations -- is an oft-repeated refrain here. Milinda's other favorite response is kallosi bhante nāgasenāti -- "You are wise, Nagasena" --, as he readily accepts Nagasena's pronouncements at face value (and is duly -- or rather all too easily ? -- impressed).
       Often enough, Nagasena will offer a somewhat plausible explanation or analogy, but some are more convincing that others, and Milinda's lack of follow-through or additional probing can be rather frustrating -- as, for example, with the rare physical demonstration Nagasena offers:

     The king said: "Nagasena, sir, you say that 'the great earth rests on water, water rests on air, and air rests on space.' I don't believe this claim either."
     The elder picked up some water with a water strainer and turned to King Milinda. "Just as this water is held in place by air, great king, so to the water is held up by air.'"
     "You are wise, Nagasena."

       And, as (and far too) often, Milinda leaves it at that, moving on to the next, very different question.
       In the third -- and by far the longest -- section, Milinda: "discovered 'ram horn' dilemmas, that is, queries subject to refutation and difficult to resolve", and it is these that Nagasena engages with here.
       These are more complex -- or at least often 'two-pronged' --, with Milinda describing one as: " knottier than a knot, pricklier than a prickle, and more tangled than a tangle". But, of course, they pose, little difficulty for Nagasena .....
       Milinda asks, for example, in one case:

This deep, extremely subtle, and difficult two-pronged dilemma is put to you. Please cut through the web of wrong views, establish certainty, and break down the arguments of opponents.

Nagasena does cut to the quick -- though Milinda is arguably often too easily satisfied. Nagasena does explain that:

Great king, there are four ways of answering questions. What are the four ? There is the question that is answered definitively, the question that is answered with analysis, the question that is answered with a counter-question, and the question that is answered by setting it aside.

The last, in particular, seem a kind of weaseling out -- Nagasena suggesting of such questions (which include interesting ones such as: "Is the world eternal ? Is the world finite ? Is the world infinite ?", etc.) that:

For what reason was the question to be set aside ? Because there was no cause or reason for explaining it, it was a question to be set aside. There are no sayings or utterances of blessed buddhas without reason or cause."
"Ver well, then, Nagasena, it is so, and I accept it."

A bit more pushback, here and elsewhere, would certainly have been welcome (and called for), but, hey, buddha(s) know best .....
There's also quite a bit of blame-placing: if you do something bad, you get what's coming: tathagatas (like Bhagavan, one of the other terms used for Buddha(s)) can be okay with the death-penalty for thieves because: "a thief is not slain at the approval of the tathagatas but is slain by what he did". Similarly, when, for example, a protective charm fails to protect:

"So too great king, it is because of one's own fault that a protective charm that saves beings fails."
"Excellent, Revered Nagasena. The dilemma is well decided, the thicket cleared, the darkness made light, and the net of wrong views unraveled. You have joined the ranks of the finest and most distinguished teachers."

It does all fit with the larger picture of things -- not least because:

The effects of karma surpass everything else and their rule prevails. For one overpowered by karma, other kinds of agency do not stand a chance.

       Ah, yes, there ain't no fighting karma .....
       Some of the reasoning surely doesn't pass the sophistry-test, as when Milinda points out that the Bhagavan (Buddha) said there are: "eight causes, that is eight conditions, that trigger massive earthquakes" and he asks how then to explain that: "a ninth cause of a massive quake was evident when Prince Vessantara gave a great gift and the earth trembled seven times". Even about something like this -- how many causes of earthquakes there are -- the Bhagavan can not be seen as to have possibly been mistaken, and so Nagasena explains that that particular case: "was an unusual incident, happening just once, separate from the eight, and not counted among the eight cases".
       Women are noticeably absent from most of these discussions -- with Milinda noting in a rare example that considers female conduct, that: "the Bhagavan did say that 'all women would do evil if given the opportunity, could do so in secret, or were invited to; and not finding anyone else, they would do so with a lame man'", leading to some creative contortions on the part of Nagasena to explain why a woman, Amara: "though offered a thousand, did not commit evil".
       Nagasena also insists that Dhamma -- described by Heim in her Glossary as: "the Buddha's teaching; also understood to describe the truth or the way things are" -- is: "serious and weighty", and that it's not just for anyone, practically imploring:

May the best and most excellent Dhamma not come into the hands of someone not proficient in the tradition and thereby become degraded, despised, scorned, derided, and rejected, and may the best and most excellent Dhamma not reach bad people and thereby become degraded, despised, scorned, derided, and rejected.

       Ah, yes: "Dhamma is deep, recondite, imperceptible, hard to understand, subtle, and difficult to penetrate" -- so best to leave it to the specialists ..... And in the fourth section of the book, 'A Question Resolved by Inference', Nagasena goes on at considerable length as to the Bhagavan's 'Dhamma City', a kind of karmic utopia (the inference being that this perfect city proves 'the Bhagavan exists' (in all his perfection)) -- populated by, among others: "those with successful morality, those successful with concentration, and those successful with understanding".
       The final section offers 'Questions and Discussions of Analogies' ('The Similes' in Davids), in which Milinda asks: "how many attributes must a monk possess to become an arhat ?" (i.e. 'someone who has achieved nibbana' (Nirvana)). Here Nagasena presents a long list of analogies (similes), as, for example: "He must acquire five attributes of the turtle, one attribute of bamboo, one of the bow, two of the crow, and two of the monkey", each of which Nagasena then explains in more detail. There are apparently sixty-seven of these items whose attributes an arhat must possess (so the numbered list in the Davids), with the number of attributes of each ranging from a single one to seven (in the case of both the sun and the lion). While there is an inevitable list-like quality to this section, it makes for a quite creative take, with the explanation of the attributes often appealing. It's quite the checklist, however .....
       Indeed, throughout there is a great deal of enumeration ("Memory occurs through sixteen modes, great king, and these are the sixteen", or: "there are twenty-eight special qualities of secluded meditation" (all then listed), for example), and familiarity with other Buddhist writing presumably helps, with examples (both in questions and answers) often taken from these.
       When all of it is said and done:

At the conclusion of the questions and answers of the king and the elder, this great earth, measuring eighty-four hundred thousand leagues up to the water, quaked six times. Lightning struck, the gods rained down a shower of celestial flowers, and Great Brahma gave a cry of "Well done !" And in the deep recesses of the ocean there was a great roar like the thundering of a storm cloud.

       Readers will presumably experience somewhat less when they have finished The Questions of Milinda.
       As Milinda quotes at one point: "the Bhagavan said, 'Monks, live your lives delighting in being free of proliferating thoughts and taking pleasure in being free of proliferating thoughts'" Nagasena is able to put Milinda's mind at ease, offering responses to Milinda's questions and uncertainties that satisfy the king, keeping ay (further) thoughts from proliferating; readers may have hoped for more vigorous debate.
       There are a variety of interesting questions -- and creative answers -- to The Questions of Milinda, and it does make for a fairly coherent -- if in part very stretched -- religion-philosophy -- though it's also amusing/disappointing to see that, when all else fails, the popular-among-all-religions retort of [insert-the-name-of-your-deity-or-equivalent]-is all-knowing-and-can't-be wrong-or-questioned fall-back is pulled out here as well.
       As to the literary quality of the text, it does impress in part, and some of the sections and exchanges are very nicely done, but the question-and-answer format -- and, in particular, Milinda's unwillingness to push back very much anywhere -- rather sap any potential dramatic tension. Having the Pali text facing the English translation is of some help and interest, but less than in the case of most of the Murty Classical Library editions -- though at least the original is likely somewhat more accessible to most, as it is written in a (diacritic-enhanced) Roman script.

- M.A.Orthofer, 23 June 2025

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Links:

The Questions of Milinda:

Harvard University Press publicity page
Gallimard publicity page
Jhana Verlag publicity page
Feltrinelli publicity page
Motilal Banarsidass publicity page
Milindapañha - Pali text

Reviews:

Gli scrittori della porta accanto (Italian)

Other books of interest under review:

See Index of Indian literature
See Index of Interviews, conversations, and dialogues
See Index of books dealing with Religion
See Index of Philosophy books
Other books from Murty Classical Library of India under review
See Index of Books Written Before 1900

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