1. Milindapañha Bhikkhu Nāgasena
The conversations between Indo-Greek King (ancient Greece) Milinda/ Menandros, a Bactrian king
and
Bhikkhu Nāgasena
Took place five hundred years after the Parinibbàna of the Buddha

2. Originally written either in Sanskrit or Prakrit.
Bactrian Greek language
Milindaparipucchaa is the original Sanskrit text of the Milindapañha.
It was translated into Chinese as the Bhikshu Nagasena Sutra.

3. The present text basically has four parts:
(1) Introductory Story
(2) Milindapañha
(3) Mendhakapañha
(4) Upamakathāpañha

4. King Milinda
A Indo-Greek king Milinda (Menander), who was born in Kalasi in Alasandā.
He ruled northwestern India from Sāgalā (modern Siālkot) during the second century BCE.
His capital is supposed to have been Sāgala, in northern Punjab (modern Sialkot), Pakistan.

5. His territories covered the eastern dominions of the divided Greek empire of Bactria (from the areas of the Panjshir and Kapisa) and extended to the modern Pakistan provinces of the Punjab and parts of Himachal Pradesh and the Jammu region.

6. Many of his coins have been found over a wide area of northern India, as far west as Kabul, as far east as Mathura and as far north as Kashmir.
The findings of coins testify to the prosperity and extension of his empire.

9. Plutarch says,
“Menander was a king noted for justice who enjoyed such popularity with his subjects that upon his death, which took place in camp, diverse cities contended for the possession of his ashes. The dispute was settled by the representatives of the different cities agreeing to divide the relics, and then erecting separate monuments to his memory”.

10. The recent publication of the Mir Zakah treasure confirms the rule of Menander in Ghazni and adjoining areas of the Kabul valley in the north (there are 521 coins of Menander in that treasure).
He probably reigned from about 150 to 110 B.C. (thus dating his conversations not much more than 400 years after the Parinibbàna of the Buddha).

11. Menander annexed the Indus delta, the peninsula of Surastra (Kathiavar), occupied Mathura on the Jumna, besieged Madyamika (Nagari near Chitor) and Saketam in southern Oudh, and threatened the capital, Paṭāliputta. But the invasion was repulsed and Menander was forced to return to his own country.
Since the Bactrians later became Buddhists there can be little doubt that King Menander is indeed the King Milinda.

14. The Contents of Milindapañha:
Questions on Distinguishing Characteristics/Marks : Attention and Wisdom, five aggregates, etc.
Questions for the Cutting Off of Perplexity : Anatta, Puggala, kamma and Rebirth, Anatta, etc.
civil wars or election campaigns

15. Questions on Dilemmas : Speaks of several puzzles and these puzzles were distributed in eighty-one dilemmas, in which Milinda seeks to reconcile what appear to him to be contradictory statements by the Buddha in the Pāli canon e.g.
If the Arahanthood can be obtained by the lay people, what is the meaning of becoming monk?
civil wars or election campaigns

16. A Question solved By Inference (implication) discusses the special Qualities of Asceticism.

17. Mr. T.W. Rhys Davids said, “I venture to think that the ‘Questions of King Milinda’ is undoubtedly the masterpiece of Indian prose; and indeed the best book of its class, from a literary point of view, that had been produced in any country.”