The Debate of King Milinda: An Abridgement of the Milinda Panha.

• Author: McDermott, James P.
• Position: Review

Edited by BHIKKHU PESALA. Buddhist Tradition Series, vol. 14. Delhi: MOTILAL BANARSIDASS, 1991. Pp. xx + 125. Rs 125.

The Milinda Panha, a highly authoritative, extracanonical Buddhist Pali text dating from perhaps the first or second century C.E., details the philosophic and religious encounter between a Greco-Bactrian King, Milinda [= Menander], and a learned Buddhist monk, Nagasena. In their discussions, the king proposes a series of dilemmas based on points of Buddhist teachings which are then satisfied by the erudite responses of Nagasena.

Two complete translations of the Milinda Pahha exist in English, namely: T. W. Rhys Davids, The Questions of King Milinda, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1890-94); and I. B. Horner, Milinda's Questions, 2 vols. (London: Luzac, 1963-64).

In the present volume, the Burmese- and Thai-trained British monk, Bhikkhu Pesala presents a 98-page English abridgment of the text. This compares with the 420 pages of the Pali Text Society's edition of the original Pali Text, the 610 pages of Homer's translation, and the 681 pages of Rhys Davids'. The economies in the abridgment stem largely from the omission of repetitions in the original and significant reduction in the number of similes used to make a point. This is particularly evident in Bhikkhu Pesala's treatment of book VII of the text where, in a discussion of the qualities with which a monk must be endowed in order to become an arahant, of sixty-seven similes drawn by Nagasena in the original, the abridgment includes only eighteen.

Bhikkhu Pesala's...