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

extremely difficult to do so. Being defeated in one or two battles, the
Satavahanas themselves had to withdraw their forces from the north of the
Narmada river to the south, in order to build up a strong defence for their
own territory against Kanishka’s conquests. By that time, Kanishka had
conquered all the Saka states of Malava, Gujarath, Sourashtra and Sindh.
Naturally, the Sakas in those regions renounced their allegiance to the
Andhras and paid the obeisance to their new lord, Emperor Kanishka. Over
and above, Kanishka’s army crossed the Narmada in order to march upon
the Andhras themselves and subdued a corner of Aparantak (north Konkan).
But mindful of the concentrated armed might of the Andhras, Kanishka
dared not attack them. So, he withheld his southern conquests forthwith.
Thereafter, he marched with a huge army to oppose the Chinese general
who had invaded his north-Himalayan territories. After a series of battles,
he vanquished even the Chinese general and annexed the Chinese provinces
of Kashgar (Tashkand), Chaskand, and Khotan to his empire.
The test of a Nation’s Prowess and its right to live
237. The propriety of recounting this whole incident here is to show
clearly that this sudden eruption of the Saka-Kushans throughout Asia did
not convulse India alone; it discomfited even the then strongly-built and
well-organised empire like China too for a time on the battlefield. But just
as it is torn-foolery, born out of jealousy, to say that the Chinese nation had
been weak throughout all these years and had never been better fitted for
anything else than to be rotting in slavery simply because they suffered
temporary defeats against the Saka-Kushans or at some such other times, it
is equally foolish and jealously blind to say, as some of our enemies do, that
the Indian national life was a series of defeats. It only shows that they
cannot read history properly.
238. It is not the number of foreign aggressions over a nation that is the
last criterion of deciding its vitality or virulity or the absence of both, but
the query, whether that nation was destroyed as a result of those
aggressions, or whether in the final phase of that national struggle, that
nation was able to overcome those foreign aggressions, that determines a
nation’s prowess, its vitality and its right to live.
239. Let us see which of the three, the Sakas, the Kushans or the Indians,
passed this test successfully, and who passed out of existence.
Kanishka Embraces Buddhism?