During the long reign of King Milinda, and also afterwards, for well over half a century the people of Madra and the citizens of Sagal had had no experience of invasion or a state of war, so much so that they had forgotten the very feel of war. Their minds were occupied with such things as the performance of religious rituals, accumulation of wealth, establishment of monasteries, prosperity through trade with foreign countries, realization of rent from peasants settled on their fiefs, importation of able-bodied slaves and buxom women, and with rivalries among themselves for right and honour through membership of the Republican Council.

When the administration of the mighty King Milinda passed into the hands of the dynastic families, the military organization in Madra also underwent a change. In the reign of King Milinda, the treasury of the state had been emptied in the service of Buddhist monasteries. There were no means, in those days, of maintaining a strong army of twenty thousand men, built during the early period of his reign when he had been ambitious of conquests. The professional soldiers of Madra, dissatisfied with the king’s pacific policy, left to join the armies of other kingdoms or took up different professions. Many donned saffron robes and took up the begging bowl in place of the bow and the sword. Seeing the exhausted nature of the state treasury, Mithrodus, the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Republic, transferred the organization of the army into the hands of the noble families. Every noble who was a member of the Council was allotted the task of equipping five hundred to one thousand soldiers for the Republic, while every plebeian member had to supply for two hundred. In accordance with their position and authority, the noble families were granted fiefs of five to twenty-five villages, in recognition of the services rendered to the army.

And now, when the invasion of Kendras was imminent, the mobilization of the army by the noble families existed merely as a resolution on the palmyra leaves of the scribes of the Council and in the imagination of its members. The rent exacted from the peasants in the fiefs was not used for the maintenance of soldiers but was squandered in the pursuit of pleasures.

The aged Commander-in-Chief, shaken by the death of his young son, was trying to seek solace in philosophical detachment, as preached by the Buddha. But conscious of his duty towards the defence of the Republic, he instructed Acharya Pravardhan, the Chairman, to call a meeting of the Republican Council.

The Chairman, in turn, issued similar instructions to the feudatory chiefs through Kartavir, who was responsible for convening the meetings. Eventually, the Council assembled after a long delay.

‘The army of the Republic is a joke,’ said the Commander-in-Chief. ‘For the purpose of defence, the Republic must raise a suitable army forthwith.’

Acharya Pravardhan issued a decree for an increase in state revenues, in order to replenish the treasury for the conduct of war and mobilization of the army.