Mahadharmaraksita

Who is Mahadharmaraksita?

Mahadhammarakkhita was a Greek Buddhist master, who lived during the 2nd century BCE during the reign of the Indo-Greek king Menander.

In the Mahavamsa, a key Pali historical text, he is recorded as having travelled from “Alasandra”, with 30,000 monks for the dedication ceremony of the Maha Thupa at Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka, when it was completed shortly after the death of the Sri Lankan king Dutthagamani Abhaya.

The Mahamvasa lists the congregations that visited Sri Lanka for the dedication of the Maha Thupa, explaining that:

This reference is seen as having several implications regarding the role of the Greeks in the Buddhist community at that time:

Alexandria of the Caucasus or Alexandria of the Arachosians, cities under the control of the Greek king Menander, had a Buddhist monk population of possibly as many as 30,000, indicating a flourishing Buddhist culture under the Greeks.

The head of this Buddhist community was a Greek Buddhist elder whose religious name was Mahadhammarakkhita, indicating the direct involvement of Greeks in the development of the faith, in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent.