King Milinda had established his kingdom in the land of Madra by routing the royal dynasty of the Pauravs. During his long reign, he granted rights and privileges to numerous families of the deposed Paurav dynasty and to many noble Brahmin families, thereby making them his associates in administering the kingdom. Likewise, he made royal gifts of land to numerous Greek military commanders and turned them into feudatory chiefs. At the time when he renounced his throne, King Milinda did not leave behind any successor. The wealthy and powerful noble families of Madra did not want to put anyone in his place. Instead, following the practice of the republics of the eastern Jambu Dweep,¹ they began to administer the kingdom in the style of a republic. Mithrodus, an aged and experienced statesman and the erstwhile Commander-in-Chief under the Greek king, having held the reins of the military forces, was nominated President of the new republic and chief of the armed forces, while the king’s minister, Mahamati Acharya Dev Mitra, was appointed Chairman of the Republican Council.

Even though Prestha the merchant had amassed wealth and enjoyed the respect of the people, he could not become a member of the Council, since he did not belong to a high caste. But with the power of his wealth, his ingenuity and humility, he succeeded in becoming a trusted confidant of Mithrodus, and thereby exercised great influence. The only son of Mithrodus had died young. To the grief-stricken President of the Republic, Prestha became his right-hand man.

Prestha, the magnate, brought up his son, Prithusen, in the same manner as children in noble families, and like them he had him trained in the use of weapons and in the scriptures. While Prithusen was in his teens, he was also sent to Taxila for higher education, along with Vinay Sharma, grandson of Dev Sharma, the Chief Justice; Sakrid, son of the feudatory chief Kartavir; Indradeep, son of Sarvarth; and Vasudhir, younger son of Acharya Pravardhan, Chairman of the Republican Council.

Having enjoyed a significant status since his childhood days, Prithusen had more self-esteem than his father and was less adept in the art of humility. He was more inclined to breaking down barriers than to bypassing them. Being wealthier and more talented than his contemporaries, he could not bear to be considered their inferior in public esteem.

Highly coloured reports of the murder of Vrihadrath, the last king of the Maurya dynasty in Magadh, at the hands of his Brahmin Commander-in-Chief, Pushya Mitra, followed by a revolt in that nation, reached distant Madra. It was strongly rumoured among the families adhering to the caste religion system and among the common people of Madra that Commander Pushya Mitra was none other than an incarnation of Kartikeya, ‘the invincible commander of the gods’, who had taken birth to rid Jambu Dweep of the lowly ‘Sudra kings of the Maurya dynasty’ and of the curse of the atheistic Buddhist religion, and that it was for this sacred mission that the great Brahmin sage, Patanjali, had performed for him the holy Rajasuya yajna¹ and rendered him invincible.