भारतीय इतिहास के ६ स्वर्णिम पृष्ठ (वीर सावरकर - विदेशी आक्रान्ताओं पर विजय गाथा)

other religionists, the Buddhists also could observe their own rituals
according to their own beliefs and likings. Besides, they could openly
preach by sweet persuasion and discussion.
205. Subsequent to the invasions of Alexander and Seleucos, when the
Greeks came raiding for the second time under Demetreos and Menander,
and when advancing as far as Ayodhya, they were about to dethrone the
reigning king of Magadha and endanger the independence of the Indian
empire, the Indian Buddhists played a brazen-faced treacherous role, as is
seen from the fact that these Buddhists swore their loyalty to the Greek
Emperor, Menander, whom they called Milind. When the latter adopted the
Buddhist cult, they accepted him as the King of the region conquered by
him. The Buddhist scholars and 'bhikksus' proudly struted in the Indian
courts of those Greeks, as if they were moving in some national court. In
order to put down as sternly as possible these highly objectionable
treacherous acts of these Indian Buddhists, the plots hatched to undermine
the national independence, and the open instigation to do anti-national acts,
which went on incessantly through various Buddhist monasteries and
viharas, Pushyamitra and his generals were forced, by the exigency of time
when the war was actually going on, to hang Indian Buddhists, who were
guilty of seditious acts and to pull down the monasteries, that had become
the centres of sedition. It was a just punishment for high treason and for
joining hands with the enemy, in order that Indian independence and
empire might be protected. It was no religious persecution. As the supreme
authority in the imperial administrative structure of India, it was
Pushyamitra’s duty—a religious and kindly duty, according national legal
code—to chastise perfidy, whether it was on part of the Buddhists or on
that of the Vedic Hindus!
Ashoka and Pushyamitra
206. In traditional historical writings, mainly based on Buddhist myths,
Ashoka has been extolled as tolerant of different religious sects, while
Pushyamitra wholly conniving at his efforts to establish religious freedom,
is generally imputed with intolerence and persecution of the Budhists. This
false notion has to be corrected. If any body is at all guilty of religious
intolerance, it was Ashoka himself. For not only with verbal propaganda but
with the abuse of his regal authority, he declared illegal all the fundamental
religious rituals, such as sacrifice and hunting by the Vedic Hindus, who
formed the majority of his subjects. But Pushyamitra did not issue any royal