Менандр I: Греко-бактрийский царь и покровитель буддизма.

2nd century BCE Greco Bactrian and Indo Greek king
Menander might have initially been a king of Bactria. After conquering the Punjab,

Large numbers of Menander’s coins have been unearthed, attesting to both the flourishing commerce and longevity of his realm. Menander was also a patron of Buddhism, and his conversations with the Buddhist sage Nagasena are recorded in the important Buddhist work, the Milinda Panha ("The Questions of King Milinda"; panha meaning "question" in Pali). After his death in 130 BC, he was succeeded by his wife Agathocleia, perhaps the daughter of Agathocles, who ruled as regent for his son Strato I. Buddhist tradition relates that he handed over his kingdom to his son and retired from the world, but Plutarch says that he died in camp while on a military campaign, and that his remains were divided equally between the cities to be enshrined in monuments, probably stupas, across his realm.

A coin of Menander I was found in the second oldest stratum (GSt 2) of the Butkara stupa suggesting a period of additional constructions during the reign of Menander. It is thought that Menander was the builder of the second oldest layer of the Butkara stupa, following its initial construction during the Maurya empire. These elements tend to indicate the importance of Buddhism within Greek communities in northwestern India, and the prominent role Greek Buddhist monks played in them, probably under the sponsorship of Menander.

Menander has left behind an immense corpus of silver and bronze coins, more so than any other Indo Greek king. During his reign, the fusion between Indian and Greek coin standards reached its apogee. The coins feature the legend (ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΣΩΤΗΡΟΣ ΜΕΝΑΝΔΡΟΥ / Kharoshthi: MAHARAJA TRATARASA MENADRASA). According to Bopearachchi, his silver coinage begins with a rare series of drachma depicting on the obverse Athena and on the reverse her attribute the owl. The weight and monograms of this series match those of earlier king Antimachus II, indicating that Menander succeeded Antimachus II. On the next series, Menander introduces his own portrait, a hitherto unknown custom among Indian rulers. The reverse features his dynastical trademark: the so called Athena Alkidemos throwing a thunderbolt, an emblem used by many of Menander's successors and also the emblem of the Antigonid kings of Macedonia. In a further development, Menander changed the legends from circular orientation to the arrangement seen on coin 4 to the right. This modification ensured that the coins could be read without being rotated, and was used without exception by all later Indo Greek kings. These alterations were possibly an adaption on Menander's part to the Indian coins of the Bactrian Eucratides I, who had conquered the westernmost parts of the Indo Greek kingdom, and are interpreted by Bopearachchi as an indication that Menander recaptured these western territories after the death of Eucratides. Menander also struck very rare Attic standard coinage with monolingual inscriptions (coin 5), which were probably intended for use in Bactria (where they have been found), perhaps thought to demonstrate his victories against the Bactrian kings, as well as Menander's own claim to the kingdom. There exist bronze coins of Menander featuring a manifold variation of Olympic, Indian, and other symbols. It seems as though Menander introduced a new weight standard for bronzes. Menander was the first Indo Greek ruler to introduce the representation of Athena Alkidemos ("Athena, saviour of the people") on his coins, probably in reference to a similar statue of Athena Alkidemos in Pella, capital of Macedon. This type was subsequently used by most of the later Indo Greek kings.

A king named Menander with the epithet Dikaios, "the Just", ruled in Punjab after 100 BC. Earlier scholars, such as A. Cunningham and W. W. Tarn, believed there was only one Menander, and assumed that the king had changed his epithet and/or was expelled from his western dominions. A number of coincidences led them to this assumption:
The portraits are relatively similar, and Menander II usually looks older than Menander I. The coins of Menander II feature several Buddhist symbols, which were interpreted as proof of the conversion mentioned in the Milinda Panha. The epithet Dikaios of Menander II was translated into Kharosthi as Dharmikasa on the reverse of his coins, which means "Follower of the Dharma" and was interpreted likewise. However, modern numismatists such as Bopearachchi and R. C. Senior have shown, by differences in coin findings, style, and monograms, that there were two distinct rulers. The second Menander could have been a descendant of the first, and his Buddhist symbols may have been a means of alluding to his ancestor's conversion. However, Menander I struck a rare bronze series with a Buddhist wheel (coin 3).

Menander was the last Indo Greek king mentioned by ancient historians, and developments after his death are therefore difficult to trace. a) The traditional view, supported by W. W. Tarn and Bopearachchi, is that Menander was succeeded by his queen Agathoclea, who acted as regent to their infant son Strato I until he became an adult and took over the crown. Strato I used the same reverse as Menander I, Athena hurling a thunderbolt, and also the title Soter. According to this scenario, Agathoclea and Strato I only managed to maintain themselves in the eastern parts of the kingdom, Punjab, and at times Gandhara. Paropamisadae and Pushkalavati were taken over by Zoilos I, perhaps because some of Agathokleia's subjects may have been reluctant to accept an infant king with a queen regent. b) On the other hand, R. C. Senior and other numismatics such as David Bivar have suggested that Strato I ruled several decades after Menander: they point out that Strato's and Agathoclea's monograms are usually different from Menander's, and overstrikes and hoard findings also associate them with later kings. In this scenario, Menander was briefly succeeded by his son Thrason, of whom a single coin is known. After Thrason was murdered, competing kings such as Zoilos I or Lysias may have taken over Menander's kingdom. Menander's dynasty was thus dethroned and did not return to power until later, though his relative Nicias may have ruled a small principality in the Kabul valley.

After the reign of Menander I, Strato I and several subsequent Indo Greek rulers, such as Amyntas, Nicias, Peucolaus, Hermaeus, and Hippostratus, depicted themselves or their Greek deities forming with the right hand a symbolic gesture identical to the Buddhist vitarka mudra (thumb and index joined together, with other fingers extended), which in Buddhism signifies the transmission of the Buddha's teaching. At the same time, right after the death of Menander, several Indo Greek rulers also started to adopt on their coins the Pali title of "Dharmikasa", meaning "follower of the Dharma" (the title of the great Indian Buddhist king Ashoka was Dharmaraja "King of the Dharma"). This usage was adopted by Strato I, Zoilos I, Heliocles II, Theophilus, Peucolaus and Archebius. Altogether, the conversion of Menander to Buddhism suggested by the Milinda Panha seems to have triggered the use of Buddhist symbolism in one form or another on the coinage of close to half of the kings who succeeded him. Especially, all the kings after Menander who are recorded to have ruled in Gandhara (apart from the little known Demetrius III) display Buddhist symbolism in one form or another. Both because of his conversion and because of his unequaled territorial expansion, Menander may have contributed to the expansion of Buddhism in Central Asia. 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"). A frieze in Sanchi executed during or soon after the reign of Menander depicts Buddhist devotees in Greek attire. The men are depicted with short curly hair, often held together with a headband of the type commonly seen on Greek coins. The clothing too is Greek, complete with tunics, capes and sandals. The musical instruments are also quite characteristic, such as the double flute called aulos. Also visible are Carnyx like horns. They are all celebrating at the entrance of the stupa. These men would probably be nearby Indo Greeks from northwest India visiting the Stupa.

The anthropomorphic representation of the Buddha is absent from Indo Greek coinage, suggesting that the Indo Greek kings may have respected the Indian an iconic rule for depictions of the Buddha, limiting themselves to symbolic representation only. Consistently with this perspective, the actual depiction of the Buddha would be a later phenomenon, usually dated to the 1st century, emerging from the sponsorship of the syncretic Kushan Empire and executed by Greek, and, later, Indian and possibly Roman artists. Datation of Greco Buddhist statues is generally uncertain, but they are at least firmly established from the 1st century. Another possibility is that just as the Indo Greeks routinely represented philosophers in statues (but certainly not on coins) in Antiquity, the Indo Greek may have initiated anthropomorphic representations of the Buddha in statuary only, possibly as soon as the 2nd 1st century BC, as advocated by Foucher and suggested by Chinese murals depicting Emperor Wu of Han worshipping Buddha statues brought from Central Asia in 120 BC (See picture). An Indo Chinese tradition also explains that Nagasena, also known as Menander's Buddhist teacher, created in 43 BC in the city of Pataliputra a statue of the Buddha, the Emerald Buddha, which was later brought to Thailand. Stylistically, Indo Greek coins generally display a very high level of Hellenistic artistic realism, which declined drastically around 50 BC with the invasions of the Indo Scythians, Yuezhi and Indo Parthians. The first known statues of the Buddha are also very realistic and Hellenistic in style and are more consistent with the pre 50 BC artistic level seen on coins. This would tend to suggest that the first statues were created between 130 BC (death of Menander) and 50 BC, precisely at the time when Buddhist symbolism appeared on Indo Greek coinage. From that time, Menander and his successors may have been the key propagators of Buddhist ideas and representations: "the spread of Gandhari Buddhism may have been stimulated by Menander's royal patronage, as may have the development and spread of Gandharan sculpture, which seems to have accompanied it" (Mcevilley, "The Shape of Ancient Thought", p. 378).

The Milind College in the city of Aurangabad, India, is named after King Menander I using the Pali translation of his name, Milind. The college was founded in part by Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, an Indian leader of the Dalit Buddhist movement and writer to the constitution of the Republic of India.

In Classical Antiquity, from at least the 1st century, the "Menander Mons", or "Mountains of Menander", came to designate the mountain chain at the extreme east of the Indian subcontinent, today's Naga Hills and Arakan, as indicated in the Ptolemy world map of the 1st century geographer Ptolemy.