Khuddakanikāye

The Milindapañha — the questions of King Milinda: a dialogue between the Indo-Greek king Menandros, who reigned in the 100s BCE, and the otherwise unknown monk Nāgasena.

The king is historical; the book is not history. Milinda is made to converse with the six heretics who were contemporaries of the Buddha, three centuries before him. And although the questioner is a Greek, there is no traceable Greek influence on either the form or the content: the dialogue form is Indian, out of the Upaniṣadic tradition.

Its growth can actually be watched, which is rare. A Chinese translation made in the 300s CE contains only the first of the five pieces that now make up the book, and shows that the original was much shorter and written in another language — perhaps Gāndhārī. That first piece belongs to 100 BCE–200 CE; the other four — the Meṇḍakapañha in two parts, the Anumānapañha and the Opammakathāpañha — were in existence by the time of the Aṭṭhakathā, which quote them. The five are held together by nothing but the two speakers.

And it is broken. The last part announces 84 comparisons and treats only 58, so a large piece is missing from the end. The Milindapañha is the only Pali text handed down incomplete, and it was already incomplete in the oldest manuscript we have, copied in 1495 CE.