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Greece and India: the Milindapañha, the Alexander-romance and the Gospels

Greece and India: the Milindapañha, the Alexander-romance and the Gospels Greece and India: the Milindapañha, the Alexander-romance and the Gospels J. DUNCAN M. DERRETT The penetrating power of the Alexander-romance is well known. Versions of that remarkable collection of historical legend and fantasy have turned up in Mongol and in the remoter East. There is hardly an eastern or western language or culture in which the cycle has not taken root and proliferatedl: with the startling ex- ception, that is to say, of India. India, the mother-land of tales and wonders, has no recognised descendants of the Alexander- romance. And this is altogether odd, since, as we shall see, a know- ledge of Greek on the confines of India and in certain areas which now correspond to Afghanistan and Pakistan can be proved from the time of Asoka Maurya2 to that of Apollonius of Tyana. Through- out the Parthian period in North-western India those ardent Hellenisers had every opportunity of introducing all branches of Greek literature, and the Alexander-romance, with its special per- 34 colating quality, can hardly have been exempt. Another cycle of stories which has had a compelling power, and therefore great mobility, is the group of four gospels. But there again, Indian evidence of the http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Zeitschrift für Religions- und Geistesgeschichte Brill

Greece and India: the Milindapañha, the Alexander-romance and the Gospels

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Publisher
Brill
Copyright
© 1967 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
ISSN
0044-3441
eISSN
1570-0739
DOI
10.1163/157007367X00167
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Greece and India: the Milindapañha, the Alexander-romance and the Gospels J. DUNCAN M. DERRETT The penetrating power of the Alexander-romance is well known. Versions of that remarkable collection of historical legend and fantasy have turned up in Mongol and in the remoter East. There is hardly an eastern or western language or culture in which the cycle has not taken root and proliferatedl: with the startling ex- ception, that is to say, of India. India, the mother-land of tales and wonders, has no recognised descendants of the Alexander- romance. And this is altogether odd, since, as we shall see, a know- ledge of Greek on the confines of India and in certain areas which now correspond to Afghanistan and Pakistan can be proved from the time of Asoka Maurya2 to that of Apollonius of Tyana. Through- out the Parthian period in North-western India those ardent Hellenisers had every opportunity of introducing all branches of Greek literature, and the Alexander-romance, with its special per- 34 colating quality, can hardly have been exempt. Another cycle of stories which has had a compelling power, and therefore great mobility, is the group of four gospels. But there again, Indian evidence of the

Journal

Zeitschrift für Religions- und Geistesgeschichte – Brill

Published: Jan 1, 1967

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