A Word in Confidence

It is with great pleasure and satisfaction that I present to the readers this
translation of the original book in Marathi. I consider it a piece of good luck
to have had an opportunity of translating such an important book by the late
Swantantrya-Veer V.D. Savarkar, which cropped up in my casual talk with
Shree Balarao Savarkar, the devoted private secretary of that Prince of
Patriots. After it was translated, every chapter went to the illustrious author
who honoured me by going through it very carefully and when I had the
good fortune to meet him personally on the completion of the undertaking,
he obliged me by saying that he was satisfied with the translation and
appreciated the hard labour it entailed. Would that Swa. Veer Savarkar had
been alive today to see this English translation of his book in print!
Veer Savarkar’s book “भारतीय इतिहासातील सहा सोनेरी पाने” is a
commentary, not a history in its academic sense—on the significant events
and periods in our national life, taking a broad survey of the growth and
survival of our Hindu race. In a way, this attempt of Savarkar has been
singular, barring a few honourable exceptions.
The general trend of the histories, written, read and taught in schools and
colleges, has been one of eulogizing the foreigners and deprecating the
Hindu race, relying wholly on the biased records of the foreign historians
and travellers. Attempts are, happily, being made to reconstruct and restate
the history of India from the national point of view, using to the utmost, all
available native records of coins and inscriptions and covert allusions in the
otherwise non-historical works, slender though they may be, but they are
still sporadic and isolated, relating to this or that particular phase of Indian
History. This volume presents ‘Six Glorious Epochs of Indian History’
since the beginning of our recorded history, i.e. from the days of
Chandragupta Maurya to the end of the British dominance over India.
Hence, like its predecessor, ‘The War of Indian Independence of 1857’,
which galvanized the public opinion and changed the world outlook on the
phase of our national life, this book too is very likely to start re-orientation
of our historical concepts and the accepted historical theories. A need for an