Milindapanha

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King Milinda asks his questions.
Menander's Coin (Milinda)

The Milindapanha ( Pali , m. Pl., Milindapañhā , "The questions of Milinda") is a Pali text from the 4th – 5th centuries assigned to the Buddhist school of Theravada . Century AD. The work, held largely in dialogue form, is about a series of philosophical conversations between the Indo-Greek king Milinda and a Buddhist monk named Nagasena.

In these conversations the king asks the monk a series of questions relating to Buddhist doctrines such as nirvana , karma and rebirth , awakening and the existence of a self . Nagasena answers these questions in a form embellished with numerous pictorial examples.

history

In the Buddhist tradition, the Milindapanha is viewed as the transmission of a historical meeting between Milinda and Nagasena, possibly in the 2nd century BC. Took place in what is now northern India .

The original version of this conversation is no longer preserved today. However, it is believed that the text was written in a North Indian Prakrit , probably Gandhari . The view taken by some Indologists that the original text could have been written in Greek is, however, controversial.

Based on this original text, Chinese translations were made in the 3rd and 4th centuries AD , of which today only the version from the 4th century with the title Nagasenabhikshusutra ( Chinese  那 先 比丘 經 , Pinyin Nàxiānbǐqiūjīng  - “Sutra from the monk Nagasena ”) has been preserved.

The Pali version with the title Milindapanha, which is preserved today, dates from the 5th century at the latest , and compared to the Chinese version, it contains numerous variants and inserts.

translation

  • Nyanaponika (ed.), Nyanatiloka (translator): Milindapanha: A historic summit in religious world talk . Verlag OW Barth, 1998, ISBN 3-502-61011-8 .
  • Questions of King Milinda, tr by TW Rhys Davids, Sacred Books of the East, volumes XXXV & XXXVI, Clarendon / Oxford, 1890–94; reprinted by Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi Vol.1 , Vol.2

literature

  • Over, Oskar von (1996/2000). A Handbook of Pāli Literature. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 3-11-016738-7
  • Winternitz, Moriz (1920). History of Indian Literature, Vol. 2: The Buddhist Literature and the Sacred Texts of the Jainas. Leipzig: CF Amelangs Verlag, pp. 139–146 digitized

Web links