Revisiting Levman’s View on the Milindapañha

This article reviews the recent picture advanced by Bryan Levman on the history of Milindapañha. As Levman proposes to back-date the original composition of the Milindapañha, suggesting that its early version was oral and that the king Milinda not necessarily corresponds to the Greek king Menander, the main topics analysed will be the identity of Milinda, the written or oral early form of the text, and the feasibility of its back-dating. Since it might seem that these new interpretative hypotheses sprung from the necessity to explain the key differences between the Pāli and Chinese versions recovered by Levman, I will indicate some preliminary historical reasons apt to justify – at least some of – the differences.