Back নাগসেন Bengali/Bangla ཀླུ་སྡེ། Tibetan Nágaséna Czech Nagasena French नागसेन Hindi Nágaszéna Hungarian Nagasena ID ナーガセーナ Japanese 나가세나 Korean नागसेन Marathi
Nāgasena | |
|---|---|
 Nagasena, 9th century CE painting | |
| Years active | around 150 BC |
Nāgasena was a Sarvāstivādan Buddhist sage who lived around 150 BC. His answers to questions about Buddhism posed by Menander I (Pali: Milinda), the Indo-Greek king of northwestern India, are recorded in the Milindapañhā and the Sanskrit Nāgasenabhiksusūtra.[1] According to Pali accounts, he was born into a Brahmin family in the Himalayas and was well-versed in the Vedas at an early age. However, he later converted to Buddhism.[2]
- ^ Buswell & Lopez 2014, p. 563: "Scholars are uncertain whether such a dialogue ever took place. There was indeed a famous king named Menander (Milinda in Indian sources) who ruled over a large region that encompassed parts of modern India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan during the middle of the second century BCE. There is, however, no historical evidence of Nāgasena. The text itself was probably composed or compiled around the beginning of the Common Era and marks some of the earliest abhidharma-style exchanges found in the literature.".
- ^ Buswell & Lopez 2014, p. 562.