page_title: Indo-Greek religions
section_title: Buddhist proselytism
hierarchical_section_title: Indo-Greek religions / Buddhism / Buddhist proselytism
caption_attribution_description: English: Ruwanwelisaya Stupa in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka Русский: Ступа Руванвелисайя в Анурадхапуре, Шри-Ланка
context_page_description: The Indo-Greeks practiced numerous religions during the time they ruled in present-day northwestern India from the 2nd century BCE to the beginning of the 1st century CE. In addition to the worship of the Classical pantheon of the Greek deities found on their coins, the Indo-Greeks were involved with local faiths, particularly with Buddhism, but also with Hinduism and Zoroastrianism.
context_section_description: There are records of the involvement of Greeks in Buddhist pilgrimages. During the reign of Menander, the Greek (Pali: Yona, lit: "Ionian") Buddhist monk Mahadhammarakkhita (Sanskrit: Mahadharmaraksita, lit. "Great protector of the Dharma") is said to have come from Alasandra (thought to be Alexandria of the Caucasus, the city founded by Alexander the Great, near today's Kabul) with 30,000 monks for the foundation ceremony of the Maha Thupa ("Great stupa") built by king Dutthagamani at Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka around 130 BCE, indicating the importance of Buddhism within Greek communities in northwestern India, and the prominent role Greek Buddhist monks played in them:
  "From Alasanda the city of the Yonas came the elder Yona Mahadhammarakkhita with thirty thousand bhikkhus."
  — Mahavamsa, XXIX)
  Several Buddhist dedications by Greeks in India are recorded, such as that of the Greek meridarch (civil governor of part of a province) named Theodorus, describing in Kharoshthi how he enshrined relics of the Buddha. The inscriptions were found on a vase inside a stupa, dated to the reign of Menander or one of his successors in the 1st century BCE (Tarn, p391):
  "The meridarch Theodorus has enshrined relics of Lord Shakyamuni, for the welfare of the mass of the people"
  — (Swāt relic vase inscription of the Meridarkh Theodoros)
  Although the spread of Buddhism to Central Asia and Northern Asia is usually associated with the Kushans, a century or two later, there is a possibility that it may have been introduced in those areas from Gandhara "even earlier, during the time of Demetrius and Menander" (Puri, "Buddhism in Central Asia"). There is however some textual evidence to suggest that Buddhism had penetrated much earlier to Central Asia, at least in a limited form: the first two disciples of the Buddha were named Tapassu and Bhallika, from the region of Balhika (the present Balkh, and Sanskrit for Bactria), and though it cannot necessarily be presumed that any extensive prosyletization occurred on their return journey, that the Sanskrit name for Bactria derived from the name of a Bactrian-Buddhist disciple is suggestive of some early influence. Bhallika and Tapassu were both travellers, and if nothing else, the story of their conversion and their home region's Sanskrit nomenclature illustrates the possibility of early transmission via the local trade routes.
caption: According to the Mahavamsa, the Great Stupa in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka, was dedicated by a 30,000-strong "Yona" delegation from "Alexandria" around 130 BCE.
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