The Questions of King Milinda – Milinda Vấn Đạo in Vietnamese

Two names: Mi Tiên Vấn Đáp and Milinda Vấn Đạo

«Mi Tiên» is the Vietnamese way of naming King Milinda, «Na Tiên» the name of the Venerable Nāgasena. The library's translation is titled «Milinda Vấn Đạo», at the head of every page, and its opening page reads «Tạng Kinh — Tiểu Bộ» (Sutta Piṭaka — Minor Collection). In the Burmese edition of the Pāli Canon the work is placed in the Khuddaka Nikāya. The Chinese canon has a much shorter parallel, the Nāgasena Bhikṣu Sūtra (Na Tiên Tì Kheo Kinh) in 3 scrolls, where the king is called Di-lan-đà and the monk Na-tiên.

Structure: six parts on 248 pages

The opening page (Mil 1) likens Milinda of Sāgala going to Nāgasena to the Ganges flowing to the sea, then says the book has six parts: the connection in the past, the questions of King Milinda, the questions on characteristics, the dilemmas, the question solved by inference and the questions explained through similes. Mil 2 tells of past lives: in the time of the Buddha Kassapa a novice vowed to have power and ready wit, and a monk made a vow too; in this life the two are King Milinda and Nāgasena.

Mil 3 holds seven chapters of short questions on the teaching. Mil 4 opens the dilemmas: the king finds sayings of the Buddha that seem to contradict each other and wants them resolved for later generations; Mil 5–6 are the dilemmas, numbered up to the eighty-second, followed by the part on inference. Mil 7 lists qualities of animals, plants and things that a monk should take up. The conclusion (Mil 8) says the book has 262 questions; the king takes refuge, then hands the throne to his son, goes forth and becomes an arahant.

The best-known questions

The first question (Mil 3.1.1) is the chariot simile: no single part is the chariot, yet the parts together give the name «chariot»; likewise «Nāgasena» is a name depending on the five aggregates, and in the ultimate sense no person is found. Asked whether the one reborn is the same person, Nāgasena answers: neither the same nor another (Mil 3.2.1). Rebirth is not a passing over, as when one lamp is lit from another (Mil 3.5.5). When the king doubts that recollecting the Buddha at death could bring a man who did evil for a hundred years to heaven, he compares it to stones loaded on a boat, which then float (Mil 3.7.2). Of nirvāṇa he says there is no direction where it is stored (Mil 6.3.12).

Reading it in the library

The library has no separate index page for the book: its 248 pages are interleaved with other books in the Khuddaka index, so this page lists the first page of each part and chapter. A newcomer can read Mil 3.1.1 and then Chapter I in order — short questions on virtue, faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration and wisdom; the dilemmas are longer and better kept for later. Most pages also have an English version; the library has no PDF or recording yet.