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The Buddhist Indo-Greeks were the Bactrian Greeks at their epoch, ruling over much of the Indus Valley. However, it seems they could have expanded further. During the reign of King Menander (known in Pali as Milinda and Sanskrit as Menadra), an attempt to conquer the Shunga Empire, which ruled over much of the Ganges, was made. He raised as far as Pataliputra, which is today known as Patna. However, he had to put this attempt on the backburner, as a rival Bactrian king attacked him. And so, Menander had to be content with merely stamping his coins with “Saviour King” for allegedly saving Buddhists from the Shunga Empire. Eventually, the Indo-Greeks were conquered by the Kushan, who syncretized the Indo-Greek syncretism with their own Persian ideas, and it seems that Greeks finally disappeared in India during the Gupta Empire.

But what if the rival king didn’t attack Menander, and Menander was able to conquer the Ganges? It seems that India was already substantially Hellenized in this time period - for instance, the Maurya capital has numerous Greek pillars - and some of this Hellenization has lasted to this day - such as in the names of the days of the week - but it could have gone further. Perhaps the Greek script, albeit in a highly cursive form, could have survived as it indeed did in Bactria until the Muslim invasion. And perhaps Indian Buddhism could have stuck rather than simply dying out during the Gupta Empire.
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