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

defeat of Mihirgula and the extinction of the Hun Power on the Oxus, India
enjoyed immunity from foreign attacks for nearly five centuries.”
300A. It clearly means that after the defeat of Mihirgula at the hands of
Yashodharma and after the end of the Hun empire beyond the Oxus, there
had been no foreign aggression over India for nearly five centuries to come.
Thus the whole of India, right from Pariyatra (Hindukush), Gandhar,
Kashmir, Punjab and Sindh straight to Kanyakumari, enjoyed under the
Hindu kings, prosperity and happiness for nearly five hundred years. The
whole of Bharat was independent, powerful, wealthy and happy!
A Resume of the Ancient period in Indian History
301-307. If by the Ancient Period in Indian History, the one from B.C.
600 to A.D. 700—a period as large as 1300 years—and if the succeeding
period is called the modern, it is in the fitness of things that here and now,
should end that period so far as the subject-matter of this book is concerned.
Some of the historical points pertaining to this ancient period—which
should very carefully be impressed on the minds of our young men and
women and the general reader, but which are generally lost sight of, are
briefly dealt with here in this conclusion:
(1) In this ancient period, no foreign aggressor could ever conquer the
whole of India at any lime. This fact generally escapes the notice of good
many of the foreigners or our own men, while some deliberately neglect it
or pervert it. On reading such titles of Chapters as ‘Alexander’s Invasion of
India’ “Sakas’ Aggression of India”, foreign as well as native readers are
generally misled into a belief that the whole of India was overrun either by
Alexander or by the Huns, and lost its independence. Under this delusion,
many of the enemies of India and her so-called well-wishers have raised
such objections and propounded such theory as to mean that the whole life
of the Indian nation, i.e. the Hindu nation, has passed under foreign slavery.
It is to bring to light and refute this foolish and wicked charge and to show
that it is due to either unintentional ignorance or wilful malice, that such
theories are ever propounded, that this book has been purposely written.
So from the foregoing narration, it should be clear that—(2) Right from
Nepal to Eastern Sea (Bay of Bengal), the whole of northern and eastern
India and southern India, that is to say, practically three fourths of this great
continent of India, had remained completely independent of any foreign
domination for these 1300 years. No aggressor by sea or land could ever
reduce it completely to slavery.

(3) Of the remaining western and northern India, roughly about 1/4 of the
continent was only once traversed by a foreigner. Sakas and Kushans held
the north-western tract of land between Punjab and Gujarat for some time.
The Huns could barely reach Ujjain. How miserably these national foes
suffered at the hands of Indian nationals has been briefly decribed in the
foregoing pages.
(4) Hardly any other contemporary nation of the world will be seen to have
so successfully destroyed the foreign aggressors and maintained its national
independence for such a length of time—not less than 1300 years.
(5) It is not only India that these Ionians, Sakas and Huns and other
aggressors invaded. Some of them disrupted almost all the other nations of
the then known world and brought in the so-called Dark Ages. They threw
some of the other nations into complete oblivion—a fact that must always
be kept in view, when comparing them with India in respect of these
barbaric aggressions.
(6) These very barbaric aggressors, who came in such large numbers
carrying powerful weapons, with the diabolic ambition of annihilating the
whole of the Indian continent were themselves reduced by the Indian
warriors to ashes in the conflagration of a general war, their beastly instincts
being purified in the material fires and merged in the vast Indian multitude
so completely, that even their name did not remain behind them!
308. Let us for a moment imagine that a certain Angel who had been
oberving the affairs of this Earth at that time, has once again come down on
the Himalayan peaks and is surveying the Indian scene. Not knowing what
happened during the intervening years, he bagan to ask from the peak:
“Well, are there still left over in this continent of India and of the Ionians
(Greeks), who had once founded a kingdom in a small corner of this vast
piece of land?” If any Angel does inquire this way, there is unfortunately no
one left to tell him, ‘ Well, I am he—their descendant!” If again the Angel
asks, “In one part of India, there were some kingdoms and communities of
the Sakas and the Kushans. Is there anyone of them to be found here now?”
To answer this question in the affirmative, there is unluckily none left. No
one can be found today to say, “Yes, I am a Saka” or “I am a Kushan.” Were
he again to ask for the third time. “At least some of the gentlemen
belonging to the Hun clan, who had once harassed the whole of the world
and who had once advanced up to Ujjain must be found here! Are there any

such?” Even to this question, no one can proudly say today: “Why not?
Here I am their direct descendant.”
309. But if the awe-stricken Angel asks again, “Well, tell me at least, if
there is any yet left of those Hindus who fought bravely with all these
foreign aggressors and ruled over India?” Then the answer, “Yes, I am that
Hindu! I am he! would spring from more than three hundred million mouths
in this country and prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the deep-rooted
foundations and the grand edifice of the Hindu nation and the Hindu State!
310. So this can be fittingly called The 4th Glorious Epoch of Indian
History, glittering in the lustrous martial achievements of the most daring
and successful emperor, YASHODHARMA!
“The Mohamedan conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in
history. It is a discouraging tale, for its evident moral is that civilization is a
precarious thing, whose delicate complex of order and liberty, culture and
peace may at any time be overthrown by barbarians invading from without
or multiplying within.”
— Will Durant: Story of Civilization.
❑

5^TH GLORIOUS EPOCH
5.
The Climax of Maharashtrian Valour!
The Maratha Standard Flutters Proudly Over Attock
Nature of the Millennial Hindu-Muslim Struggle
311. The scope of this book, ‘Six Glorious Epochs of Indian History’, has
already been explained in Chapter I (Paras: 4 to 8), from which it should be
clear that a detailed account of the continuous, long-drawn fierce and
gigantic Hindu-Muslim struggle is not intended here. What we intend to do
here is to examine thoroughly and from the Hindu standpoint, this epic
struggle and the period covered by it as searchingly, as faithfully and as
fearlessly, as it ought to have been done—but unfortunately has not so far
been done.
312. For even today, it is absolutely essential and beneficial to the
interests of the Hindu Nation.
Two ages of our History: Ancient and Modern
313. We feel our History is naturally divided by the course of events into
two great ages: the Ancient and the Modern; the first, ending with the
seventh century, and the second, stretching from the beginnings of the
eighth century to the present day. In the preceding four chapters, we have
dealt with the vast ancient period of about a thousand years or so, while we
intend to analyse, in the following nineteen chapters, the course of events
in this modern age of Hindu History.
314. In doing so, detailed accounts of the many stray events supporting
our main thesis will certainly be given, where necessary, and the
chronological sequences will also be maintained. But the chronological
details will not be allowed to crowd up the limited space at our disposal, as
they are easily available in various big or small volumes by many other
writers. Hence, our whole attention will be focussed mainly on the bearing
of different important points in the subject-matter in hand, rather than,
though not without regard to, the chronological order.
The Epic Hindu-Muslim War

315. The struggle on the two fronts in all the bloody wars fought at every
     Muslim invasion, right from the beginning of this modern age was hitherto
     unknown and unheard of. For the Greek, the Saka, the Hun and other
     invaders, who came pouring in down the plains of Punjab, was political
     domination of this country as their sole objective. Barring this political
     aim, their raids had never been occasioned by any cultural or religious
     hatred. On the other hand, these new Islamic enemies, not only aspired to
     crush the Hindu political power, and establish in its place Muslim
     sovereignty over the whole of India, but they also had seen things’ in their
     brains another fierce religious ambition, not heretofore dreamt of by any of
     the old enemies of India. Intoxicated by this religious ambition, which was
     many times more diabolic than their political one, these millions of Muslim
     invaders from all over Asia fell over India, century-after-century, with all
     the ferocity at their command, to destroy the Hindu religion which was the
     lifeblood of the nation.
     The Outrageous Christian Incursion
316. To add to these catastrophic Muslim inroads over India, Christian
     nations like the Portuguese, the Dutch, the French, the British and others
     rushed upon our nation from the sea, round about the fifteenth century
     A.D.—even if we were to ignore the infiltration by the Syrian Christians in
     the Malabar during the 1st century A.D. This Christian offensive, like the
     Muslim one, was both political and religious and equally devilish. They
     also wrought havoc by converting millions of Hindus at the point of the
     bayonet—an account of which will be given at its proper place.
317. Although the two fronts of this Muslim aggression, viz., the
     religious and political, were only the two parts of the same epic Hindu-
     Muslim struggle, their original forms, their weapons of war and their
     ultimate end, were altogether different. Naturally, they have to be discussed
     separately, as far as it is possible to do so.
318. Hence, we shall first examine the religious aspect of the Muslim-
     Christian aggression over our country in Chapters VI to XII, and then in
     Chapters 13 to 22 of this book, we shall discuss its political side.
     ❑

Beginning of Muslim Incursion
319. We have already pointed out—and shall do so hereafter - how the
histories written not only by foreign historians or those who are avowedly
inimical to us, but even by our own people, ignore the glorious episodes of
exceptional valour and monumental successes of the Hindus and in their
stead, catalogue only the calamities that befell them and present them as the
only true history of the Hindus, because they were never fearlessly written
from the pure and simple Hindu standpoint. We have already referred to
many such instances, in the first four chapters in support of our convention
and will do even in the following pages. The period under consideration
here is an instance in point.
320. Generally speaking in all histories, especially in the history textbooks
used in schools, the writers invariably jump from an account of Hunnish
onslaught to the first successful Muslim campaign on Sindh, without
writing even a line or two about the intervening long period of these
hundred years or so. Next follow in quick succession, the detailed narration
of Muslim invasions one after another, so that a common reader, especially
a pupil, catches an impression, which is very often carried even in his later
life, that the history of the Hindus is nothing but a doleful tale of foreign
subjugation and national defeats. Our enemies have publicized these false
impressions as established facts all over the world for the last two or three
centuries. For instance, a man like the late Dr. Ambedkar, burning with
hatred against Hinduism, writes:
“..The Hindus’ has been a life of a continuous defeat. It is a mode of
survival of which every Hindu will feel ashamed.”
321. In fact, historical evidence shows that after the total rout of the Huns,
that is to say, since about A.D. 550, Hindu kings and emperors successfully
crossed the Indus at various places and reconquered not only what are now
known as Sindh, Baluchistan, Afghanistan, Herat, Hindukush, Gilgit,
Kashmir and many other regions from the Greeks, the Huns, the Sakas and
other foreign people, but hoisted the victorious national flag of the Vedic
Hindus far beyond the north-western boundaries of Chandragupta Maurya’s
empire upto Uttar Kurus! Why, even in Khotan in Central Asia beyond
Kashmir, there ruled Hindu kings and in the opinion of many historians,
even Ghazani was ruled by King Sheeladitya.

The Rejuvenescent Hindu Nation
322. Even the foreign historians like Vincent Smith are astounded at the
enduring ability of the Hindu nation to rejuvenate itself after crushing
defeats. For a detailed account of this period and Smith’s glowing tribute to
the successful struggle for independence of the Hindus, the curious readers
are advised to refer to the concluding portion of Chapter IV of this book.
Only one sentence will suffice here.
322A. “After the defeat of Mihirgula (by the Hindus) and the extinction of
the Hun power, India enjoyed immunity from foreign attack for nearly five
centuries.”
323. Smith has thus completely refuted the extravagant and vulgar remark
of Dr. Ambedkar on Hindu history.
The Beginning of the awful Muslim War with India
324. It is generally believed that Mohammad Bin Kasim was the first of
the Arabian or Muslim invaders to march upon Sindh. But, in fact, it was at
least fifty years before him, that other Arabian Muslims had started picking
up quarrels with the Brahmin Kings of Sindh. They had even tried an armed
aggression. Yet we do not intend to dilate upon the systematic and
chronological account of these various skirmishes by armed bands or
military detachments. It is enough for our purpose to bear in mind that all
these attempts were foiled successfully by the Hindus. At length, Usman, the
governor of the Grand Khalipha’s distant province of Oman, openly attacked
the Hindu state of Sindh. The then Brahmin King of Sindh, Chacha,
vanquished not only these Arabs, but killed their very Commander-in-Chief,
Abdul Aziz, in a battle. After these sporadic attempts till about A.D. 640, the
Arabs did not undertake any important expedition with perhaps the only
exception of the small distant province of Makram, which they reduced to
ashes converting the Hindus there at the point of the sword to the Muslim
faith. These Hindu Baluchistanian converts of those days became later on
bigoted Muslims.
The first big Muslim Expedition against Sindh
325. Thereafter, it was in A.D. 711, that Mohammed-bin-Kasim launched
the first large-scale offenive against Sindh with a huge army, fifty-thousand
strong. The majority of the population of Sindh, then, was Vedic Hindus,
with King Dahir at the head of the state, while, only a small minority was
the follower of Lord Buddha. Formerly, when Sindh was under the Huns,
their last King Mihirgula had persecuted the Buddhists very cruelly,

because in spite of his Hunnish extraction, he had become a faithful
follower of the Vedic religion and lulled Buddhism for its feebleness.
(Chapter 4—Paragraphs 284 & 285). But after Mihirgula, when Sindh went
under the sway of the Vedic Hindu kings, the Buddhists no longer suffered
any such persecution. They were free to follow their own religion so far as
it concerned only with their own selves.
The Buddhist Traitors
326. Nevertheless, these Indian Buddhists were elated to see the Muslim
foreigners’ march against the Hindu kingdom. These Buddhists, who bore
malice towards the Hindu, perhaps thought that these new Muslim
aggressors might embrace their Buddhist cult, as did their forerunners, the
Greeks under Menander or the Kushans under Kanishka, and establish a
Buddhist empire over India. So they went and greeted the Arabian-Muslim
leader, when he captured Port Deval from the hand of King Dahir. They
appealed to him in some such way saying following:
326A. “We have nothing to do with Dahir and his Vedic Hindu cult. Our
religious faith differs very widely from theirs. Our Prophet, Lord Buddha,
has taught us ‘Ahimsa’ (Total Abstinence From Violence). We never take
arms and dabble with political affairs of the state. Whoever wins can be the
ruler of the state, we obey him in all matters temporal. You are now the
victor, so now you are our King! Never suspect for a moment, that we shall
even enlist ourselves in Dahir’s armed forces or help him in any way. So we
pray that the Buddhist should not be subjected to any indignities or troubles
at your hands.”
326B. Complying with some such request of the Buddhists, which
amounted to complete surrender, the arch diplomat Kasim gave them
temporary assurance of safety.
327. On receiving the news of the fall of Port Deval, King Dahir, on the
other hand, mobilized his army and took the field. Kasim too, on his part,
went ahead subjugating some parts of Sindh. The Muslim writers or tarikhs
(reports), who have recorded the details of this campaign, testify that the
Buddhist in Sindh helped the Muslims in every possible way, while the
latter marched onwards, by showing them difficult passes, providing them
with foodstuff and fodder and supplying them secret military intelligence.
Some few Vedic Hindus also were guilty of this treachery, but their attempts
were individual and exceptional.
King Dahir dies Fighting on the Battle-Field

328. At last, the main forces of the Muslims and the Hindus joined battle
     at Brahmanabad. The Hindus fought fiercely. Although the Muslims then
     had no cannon, they had firearms of a new type the Hindus did not possess.
     Naturally, the latter began to find themselves weaker in strength. Moreover,
     the Arab platoons that were in the pay of Dahir rebelled, when the Hindu-
     Muslim armies came to close quarters; the Arabs informed him that they
     would not fight against Mohammed-bin-Kasim since the latter was a
     Muslim as they themselves were, and that it was a religious crusade against
     the Kafirs. What more, they even marched on their Hindu master himself.
     This artlessness of the Hindus in placing complete faith in the enemy met
     the same fate, whenever in future a Hindu King employed Muslim soldiers
     in his army. This very often caused the Hindu strategy to topple down and
     made their battle-arrays ineffective.
329. Nevertheless, without letting this betrayal of the Arab platoons cause
     any confusion in his ranks, King Dahir mounted his elephant and kept on
     fighting in the thick of the fray. But when he himself was killed in the
     battle, the Hindu army was routed, and the Muslims, in hot pursuit, entered
     the city.
330. However, the moment she received the horrible news of King Dahir’s
     death on the battlefield, the Queen and hundreds of other brave Hindu
     women leapt into a great fire and burnt themselves to death. It was the limit
     of warlike spirit, the Kshatriya Dharma! The enemy’s attempts to capture
     and molest the Queen and other women of high-rank were mostly foiled.
331. Even then, in the confusion that was wrought everywhere, Dahir’s
     two daughters named Suryadevi and Pramiladevi fell into the hands of the
     Muslims, who had dashed into the city, killing every captive soldier and
     every citizen. Mohammed Kasim took them and also hundreds of others
     away as courtesans. The looting and massacre of the Hindus and the large-
     scale arson in the city went on unhindered. But that was the fate of not only
     one city, but of every other city or town that the Muslims visited on their
     onward march through Sindh, which met with the same disaster.
     But what were the Buddhists Doing in this National Catastrophe?
332. At the news of the fall of King Dahir and the victory of the Muslims,
     these Buddhists began to ring bells in their vihars to greet the Muslim
     conquerors, and prayed in congregations for the prosperity of the Muslim
     rulers!

333. But what they thus asked for as a boon proved to be an inexorable
     curse for them. After winning the final battle, when the Muslim rushed
     violently, like a stormy wind throughout Sindh, they went on beheading
     these Buddhists even more ruthlessly than they did the Vedic Hindus. For,
     the Vedic Hindus were fighting in groups or individually at every place and
     so they struck at least a little awe and terror in the minds of the Muslims.
     But as there was no armed opposition in Buddhist vihars and Buddhist
     localities, the Muslims cut them down as easily as they would cut
     vegetable. Only those of the Buddhists who took to the Muslim faith were
     spared, while all their vihars throughout Sindh and the innumerale shrines
     in them were knocked down, and hammered to pieces; for the Muslims
     hated these ‘Buddhparastis’—these shrine-worshippers.
334. The very word, “Buddhaparasta”, which found its way into the
     Islamic tongue, is itself a corrupt form of the original Sanskrit word of the
     Buddhists, “Buddhaparsata”. The Muslims began to call the shrine-
     worshippers “Buddhaparashta” because on their way to India, they first
     found such numerous shrines nowhere but in the Buddhist vihars. To
     annihilate such shrine-worshippers was for the Muslims, a sort of religious
     commandment.
     Buddhist Ahimsa and Muslim Himsa
335. This is now the place where the question that we have discussed at
     length in Chapter II (Paras 152 to 159) of this book, about the downfall of
     Buddhism in India should be chronologically concluded. By the year A.D.
     700, of which we are speaking in these pages, that is, before the Muslims
     could set foot in India towards Sindh, the Buddhists all over India were fast
     diminishing in numbers and dwindling into non-existence as is already
     shown in previous chapters. The successful theoretical refutation of the
     Buddhist philosophy and religious tenet by the stalwart Vedic theologians
     and ‘pandits’ is not the only cause of the total extinction of the Buddhists in
     India; many other social and political events also had a fair share in this
     momentous task. Of them only those, which have not received the proper
     attention from the historians so far, or which have not been given enough
     prominence they really deserve, will be conspicuously referred to at their
     proper places in these brief concluding remarks.
     The first cause: the Buddhists’ High Treason
336. We have already dwelt at length on this collective high treason of the
     Buddhists in India against their nation in Ch. II Paras 152 to 159; 182-209,

and Ch. III Paras 242-246 of this book. Because of this treacherous mentality
of the Buddhists, the whole of the patriotic and politically conscious Indian
population was up in arms to destroy them root and branch. Being convinced
beyond doubt by actual experience, that these Buddhist congregations
(Buddhasangha) were inherently anti-national and unpatriotic, and
treacherous institutions, the patriotic politicians and the kingly courts gave
them hardly any support anywhere in India. Especially in the north about the
year A.D. 700 as the new Rajput kingdoms, which were the staunch
supporters of the Vedic religion, began to prosper, the Buddhist population
and the Buddhist cult were rendered helpless, socially boycotted, weak and
invalid everywhere in India.
The Second Reason: Fanatic Buddhist Ahimsa
337. Just as the patriotic and politically conscious population of India
became impatient with the Buddhist cult, so was the general populace
disgusted with the harassment of Buddhist ahimsa. At times—though few
and far between—when the Buddhists gained the greatest political power
over the major portion of India as in the times of Ashoka and Shree Harsha,
they enforced the Buddhist tenets on the Vedic Hindus by misusing their
political authority. The writings of the times are replete with copious
references to, and illustrations of, the religious persecution carried on by the
Buddhists on those occassions. Yet, if passages are quoted from some Vedic
books, some over-sensitive soul might doubt their veracity as they occur
from an opponent’s mouth. Hence, we are adducing a specimen, to show
clearly how vehemently the foreign and non-Vedic historians have criticized
it. Vincent Smith in his ‘Early History of India’ has this to say—
338. “It is recorded by contemporary testimony that in the seventh
century, King Harsha, who obviously aimed at copying closely the
institutions of Ashoka, did not shrink from inflicting capital punishment
without hope of pardon on any person, who dared to infringe his commands
by slaying any animal or using flesh as food, in any part of his dominion.
Kumar Pal, a Jain King of Gujarat, imposed savage penalties upon violators
of his (similar) rules. An unlucky merchant who had committed the
atrocious crime of cracking a louse, was brought before a special court at
Anilhawada and punished with the confiscation of his whole property.
Another wretch, who had outraged the sanctity of the capital by bringing a
dish of raw meat, was put to death. The special court constituted by Kumar
Pal (for this purpose), had functions similar to those of Ashoka’s censors.

And the working of the latter institution sheds light on the unrecorded
proceedings of the earlier ones.”
The Martyr Louse!
339. Out of the proceeds obtained by selling the confiscated property of
the offender, who committed the ‘atrocious crime’ of cracking the said
louse, was built a big temple worth lacs of rupees and it was named
‘Yukvihar’—the Temple of Louse!
340. Had this incident been decribed by any other writer, it would have
been a parody of the Jain faith. But it is the Jain writers themselves, who
cite it with evident pride. Hence, it has to be taken as true.
341. What a paradoxical practice! In order to save a louse in the hair of a
man, to cut off the very head of that man! And this is called ‘ahimsa’! As if
to kill a man is no ‘himsa’—violence! Man seems to have no life at all! It is
because of this ‘ahimsa’, more ruthless and more violent than violence
—‘himsa’—itself, that millions of Indian hunters, fishermen, seamen,
gamekeepers, foresters and others, who lived by hunting and fishing lost
their professions.
342. When these millions of flesh-eaters jointly protested and
demonstrated how they and their wives and children would starve to death
and how this would spell violence of an enormously grave nature, King
Kumar Pal of Gujarat most graciously issued another order that these
millions of people, who have been carrying on violent professions, ought to
leave those professions themselves. However, as per their demand, the state
was to subsidize them for three years.
343. But what after those three years! Starvation could not be completely
ruled out in the case of these unfortunate millions. For, flesh and meat was
their chief food, which could be had almost for nothing. But because this
intolerant ‘ahimsa’ made flesh-eating punishable by death, this common
mass of people was antagonized to the Buddhist faith. These millions of
people shook off its tyrannical yoke, and sought refuge in the Vedic
religion, which had now taken an all-embracing noble form, accepting a
relatively considerate ahimsa, which allowed concessions for particular
time and place and persons, concentrating mainly on human welfare!
Untouchability Aggravated by the Buddhist Religion
344. Even today, not only common people and good many propagandists,
but even historians seem to be labouring under the delusion that the
Buddhists did not recognize the principle of untouchability, and that no one

was considered untouchable in the Buddhist regime. What is laid down in
someone’s religious texts is beside the point. What the actual practice was,
is the most pertinent thing. One unavoidable result of the violent way in
which the Buddhists tried to establish the principle of ahimsa, and of their
declaring animal-hunting and flesh-eating punishable by death, of their
over-enthusiastic and relentless efforts to search out such offender and give
the harshest capital and other severe punishments, was that the practice of
untouchability instead of being wiped out, became still more firmly rooted,
widespread and most distressing. The limited space at our disposal
prevents any further discussion of it in these pages, and, of course, it is
needless! An unimpeachable proof can be found, not in the Vedic, nor in
the Buddhist texts of the times, but in the account of the foreign, Chinese
travellers who had espoused Buddhism and who had travelled all over
India. They avow, “Whichever caste or community—as for example the
‘Chandals’—did not give up the violent professions and did not observe
ahimsa, according to the Buddha faith, were banished from the town as
untouchables; they had to form colonies of their own outside the towns and
cities, like those of the lepers. If at all they had an occassion and were
permitted to come to the town on some market-day, these untouchables had
to carry in one hand a stick, to the end of which was tied a child’s rattle or
a small drum, which they had to beat while going along the road, so that
the people in the streets might see them and avoid every possible contact
with them.”
345. Those, who ignorantly or maliciously blame the Peshwas for the evil
treatment given to the untouchables when they entered the town, should
also criticize, equally vehemently and for the same offence Ashoka, Shree
Harsha and Buddhist kings, and all the Kshatriya kings right from
Vikramaditya to the Rajput rulers, when they see this evidence. For this
evil tradition of untouchability was not begun by the Peshwas, for the first
time, but it had been prevalent even since the Vedic, the Buddhist and the
Jain regimes, and in the Buddhist period, especially, instead of being
weakened, it was most scrupulously and mercilessly observed. Even the
untouchables themselves treated those below their own ranks as equally or
even more untouchable. Those of the untouchables who are still under the
delusion, that the Buddhists gave no quarter to untouchability and so extol
that sect, should do well to remember that the Chandals, the Mahars and
other untouchables were far more miserable under the violently non-violent

Buddhists, than under the Vedic people, who accepted the principle of
ahimsa with its limitations. The Buddhist, once again I would like to
repeat, aggravated and not mitigated ‘untouchability’. They should
examine the validity of this statement in the light of the undisputed
evidence cited here and then alone, should they choose whatever is
beneficial to them.
346. They should remember that for the above reason, the untouchables
like the Chandals and others preferred the Vedic regimes, a more
congenial, to the unrelenting and uncompromising Buddhist ones, and
those thouands of them who in the past had voluntarily (or helplessly and
under pressure) embraced Buddhism, now renounced it and declared their
allegiance to the Vedic religion. Thus, even before the Muslims set foot in
Sindh, followers of the Buddha had begun to diminish in numbers by
millions throughout all ranks of society, right from the highest to the
lowest, and because of its inherent weakness, Buddhism had declined to
such an extent that the Chinese Buddhist travellers, who had seen its sad
plight with their own eyes, had been moved to write that the holy and once
prosperous places like Buddha Gaya, Mrigadava, Shravasti, Kushinagar,
and the birthplace of Lord Buddha, Kapilvastu, which had been sanctified
by the actual residence of the Lord and which had been the place of
pilgrimage for the world-wide Buddhist followers, had been sadly rendered
desolate and were overgrown with wild and thick forests.
347. Nevertheless, this moribund Buddhism was not altogether wiped out
of India, before the advent of the Muslims. The Buddhists were more
numerous in the north-western frontier states like Sindh and Kamboj, and
even in Bengal in the east, than in the rest of India. It is said that the
modern state of Bihar derives its name from the fact that there once existed
far too many Buddhist viharas, stoopas and other ‘Buddhaparasthas’. Since
the Vedic states were prosperous everywhere, this Buddhist sect had no
guts to carry on its traitorous activities or to enforce its religious rites and
faith on non-Buddhists, whether it had their will to do so or not. And so
long as they followed their religious faith harmlessly, they, their
organisations, their institutions, and their viharas were never interfered with
in any way by the Vedic kings. That they enjoyed complete religious
freedom is admitted by the Chinese travellers open-heartedly.
348. What then made these millions of Buddhists, living in the various
states of India before the Muslim onrush, dwindle into non-existence

thereafter?
349. Some time ago, historians, and especially western historians, had a
presumption that sometime in the past, or at frequent intervals, the Vedic
rulers must have massacred these Buddhists and destroyed them root and
branch, or reconverted them to Hinduism forcibly. In order to find some
credence to this theory of theirs, they examined the historical records of the
times most scrupulously. but even after taking into consideration a few
trifling exceptions. they could find no proof to establish any deliberate, pre-
planned, or systematic attempt on the part of the Vedic rulers to annihilate
the Buddhists completely.
349A. At last, the more conscientious of these historians declared
honestly, that this presumption of theirs was totally unfounded and the very
idea of forcible extinction of the Buddhists at the hands of the Vedic people
was basically wrong.
350. Who then was responsible for this total ousting of the Buddhist faith
from India? The historians, foreign as well as native, do not seem to have
found an answer to this pressing question, or they have, at least, preferred to
be silent on this point.
The third cause—Confrontation with Muslims
351 A. We have already briefly described in the foregoing pages how, in
spite of their traitorous solicitations of the Muslims, these
‘Buddhaprasthees’—the idol-worshipping Buddhists who preached extreme
non-violence—were violently exterminated from Sindh by the Muslim
aggressors under Kasim, owing to their innate hatred for that sect. For the
same reason, and in the very same manner, the Muslims went on liquidating
the Buddhist pockets of influence, as they advanced, conquering province-
after-province in India. With a sword in one hand and the Koran in the
other, every Muslim military chief broke down, demolished and razed to the
ground the Buddhist ‘stoopas’, ‘sangharams’, ‘viharas’, the idols of
Buddha, pillars, everything belonging to or relating to the Buddhists. As
most of the Buddhists showed, through fear of death, willingness to
embrace Islam, they were all converted. Not a single Buddhist remained
alive in the northwestern provinces like Gandhar, Kamboj and others;
everyone became a Muslim or was silenced by the victor’s sword. On
seeing Bakhtyar Khilji march on Bihar, several Buddhists took their
religious books and fled to Tibet and China. The rest were polluted and
taken over into the Muslim fold. Some might have preferred dying rather to

being Muslims, but no one fought for life and religion. Nowhere, can one
find evidence to say that some Indian Buddhist army or some Buddhist
organization fought with the Muslim invaders any battle worth the name!
Majority of Muslims in East Bengal explained
352. The same is the case with East Bengal, where the majority of the
population was Buddhist. With some honourable exceptions, the Buddhists
there took to Islam en masse. In Delhi, where the Muslim sultans and
emperors ruled for over five hundred years, the Vedic Hindus have all along
been in a clear majority. The whole of Uttar Pradesh—the northern India—
right upto West Bengal—whether under the Muslim administration or the
British or the present one, the Vedic Hindus—has all along maintained its
numerical superiority. For, even when the Muslims first came conquering,
the Buddhists in these provinces were conspicuously few in number. It is
only in East Bengal that the Hindus fell into minority. How? Quite
obviously! This province had numerically more Buddhists than the Hindus,
and those numerous Buddhists became Muslims! It is natural, therefore,
that this province alone should become, since then, a Muslim-majority
province.
353. Thus, it is the social extinction of the Buddhists in India, which came
to pass all of a sudden, which was the inevitable effect of the armed and
ruthless might of the Muslim conquerors. The relentless and
uncompromising Buddhist ahimsa was done to death by the equally
relentless and bigoted Muslim violence!
354. But what happened to the Buddhist cult and Lord Buddha himself in
India in the end? Just as a stream separated from the River Bhagirathi,
should flow separately some miles away and once again should leap as a
tributary into the same Bhagirathi, the Buddhist cult, born out of the Vedic
Hinduism, merged in the end in the same Hindu religion; and Lord Buddha
himself was established as the tenth of the Godly Avatars and was
Hinduized.
The Neglected 300 years of Hindu Valour
355-356. In most of the ‘Histories of India’, by foreign as well as by our
own writers, and especially in the textbooks of history for Indian schools,
the Muslim invasions of India follow so thickly the one of Sindh in A.D.
711 by Mohammed Kasim, and the accounts of the subjugation of province-
after-province of India are narrated so hastily, as in one breath, and the
whole account is so cursorily given in a limited space of 20 or 25 pages,

that a common reader or a small pupil is quite likely to think that the
Hindus offered practically no resistance worth the name, that the Muslims
were never halted in their advance. After the conquest of Sindh, the Muslim
victor mounted, as it were, a magic horse and went on conquering the whole
of India and never, till they reached Kanyakumari, did they alight from it.
This is obviously childish!
The Intervening Period
357. To avoid this misconception and to nullify the injustice done to the
Hindu nations, a true historian, whose avowed duty is to tell the truth, the
whole truth and nothing but the truth, should effectively and
proportionately, describe the intervals between any two Muslim invasions
and the heroic resistance, successful or otherwise, offered by the Hindus.
After the fall of Sindh in A.D. 711, Hindu kings most effectively checked
the Muslim advance outside Sindh for more or less 300 years. But this
Hindu heroism quite easily escapes the notice of the common reader,
because in almost all the textbooks of Indian History, it is not so
impressively mentioned.
358. It is because we utter the words ‘three hundred years’ or three
centuries within three seconds, that the enormous length of this intervening
period quite escapes our notice, unless we are expressly told about it. We
should, therefore, measure the period in question by generations of people.
Five generations make up 300 years! The British rule over India, for
instance, seems too lengthy to the present generation. But measured in
centuries, it lasted only for one and a half. Compared with it, the Hindu
valour in arresting the Muslim onslaught within the confines of Sindh for
more or less 300 years, assumes a greater historical significance. The same
holds good with regard to the other intervening periods.
359. One cannot say justifiably that the Muslim vigour or their ambition to
conquer the world was on the wane. On the contrary, these both were at
their full height during this period. During this very period of three hundred
years, these very Arabs had overrun and vanquished nation-after-nation,
right from Baghdad to the Mediterranean Sea and thence along the north
African coast straight to Gilbralter, whence they subjugated Portugal and
Spain and knocked at the gates of southern France. The name Gibralter
itself testifies to the unrivalled Muslim conquest of the West Jebal-Tarik,
which means the straits conquered by the Muslim Commander Tarik, which
is the root of the modern corrupt form ‘Gilbralter’.

359A. At last in A.D. 732, the valiant King of France, Charles Martel,
gave a mortal blow to the Muslim aggression and repelled them for ever. It
is this monumental triumph of Charles Martel, that saved the whole of
Europe! In their triumphant march, the Muslims not only subdued the
kingdoms in Western Asia and Northern Africa politically, but with the
sharp edge of their sword, they also forced them all to embrace Islam. Even
Portugal and Spain were forcibly converted to Islamic faith. Their
womenfolk, too, were abducted and violently defiled. But both these nations
freed themselves from the Muslim yoke some centuries afterwards. How
they did so will be described a little later. Still the fact remains that the
nations on the north coast of Africa are even today Muslims.
360. Well, it is not that during the years A.D. 700 to 1000 the Muslims did
not try to march out of Sindh and attack the neighbouring Hindu States with
the same devilish bigotry. They did try to force themselves on through
Sourashtra and Gandhar many times. But every time, they were routed by
the Hindus.
361. At that time from the eastern boundary of Sindh to the northern most
boundary of north India, there was an unbroken chain of valiant Rajput
Rajas which, like a mountain range, very difficult, though not quite
impossible to cross, kept on resisting stoutly the Muslim onslaught.
Consequently, in Sourashtra and in the north-west provinces, the attacking
Muslim armies were put to rout again and again, by the staunch resistance
of the Hindus. On the other hand, the mighty Bapa Raval of Chittod once
attacked Sindh and after driving the Muslims clean out, annexed it to his
own Kingdom. The Arabs did, no doubt, capture it once again, but
ultimately, the Sumra Rajputs firmly established their rule over Sindh.
362. If the fanatic Arabs could trample under the horses’ hoofs, the whole
northern coast of Africa and two major nations of Europe, why could they
not force their way out of Sindh? Thus, put in sharp contrast with
contemporary history of the west, the heroism of the Hindus shines out all
the more clearly and brightly.
363. Why couldn’t another Chandragupta Maurya or a Vikramaditya
channel out the whole of the Indian might, and drive the Arabian Muslims
back right into the heart of Arabia, is a fact that disturbs us not a little.
❑

The Peculiar Nature of the Muslim
Atrocities [Sultans of Ghazni]
364. During the long period of nearly three hundred years, in which the
Arab menace was being successfully hemmed in Sindh, and was finally
overthrown by the Sumra Rajputs, different Muslim tribes were busy
founding a strong Muslim power in Ghazni, further north of Gandhar. A
Sultan of Ghazni, Sabakhtageen, was now preparing himself fully to attack
his contemporary Brahmin king, Jaipal, whose forefathers had all along
been ruling the whole of Punjab and Gandhar right up to the Hindukush,
ever since the rout of the Huns.
365. Shrewdly anticipating the plan of Sabakhtageen to invade India,
Jaipal himself attacked Ghazni, but unfortunately he was repelled,
Encouraged by this success, Sabakhtageen boldly fell upon Jaipal, a few
years afterwards, with a large army. In order to meet this fierce aggression
more determinedly, King Jaipal formed a powerful alliance with the
neighbouring Hindu princes, but he was again defeated and the whole
region beyond the Indus river, including Gandhar, was lost to the Muslim
invader. Soon afterwards, Sultan Sabakhtageen died and was succeeded by
his son, Mohammed, a hundred times more fanatical and more crueller than
his father, and an arch-enemy of the Hindus. This was the same Mahmud of
Ghazni, who styled himself ‘Butshikan’, the Idol-breaker or ‘Iconoclast’. At
his accession to the throne of Ghazni, he had vowed in the presence of the
highest religious and temporal Muslim authority, the Grand Khalipha, that
he would wipe out the Kafir Hindus from India and in order to keep his
word, he soon began a series of expeditions beyond the Indus.
366. It is from now onwards—i.e. about A.D. 1000—that the really great
wars between the Hindus and the Muslims were to be fought for centuries
together.
367. If the Muslim soldiers had gained great confidence, having twice
defeated the Hindu forces under Jaipal, King Jaipal and his soldiers, without
being disheartened and downcast even after suffering two defeats, speeded
up their preparation for a still more determined stand against the Muslims.
But fortune once again frowned upon the Hindu King. And when,
notwithstanding all his valour and all his efforts to save his religion and his

nation, he was again defeated in 1001 by Mahmud of Ghazni, Jaipal
preferred entrusting the kingdom to his son, Anangpal, and burning himself
to death in a great pyre, to a disgraceful life and a meek surrender to the
enemy.
368. King Anangpal, too, carried on his father’s arduous task of staunchly
opposing the Muslim aggression. In A.D. 1006, Mahmud demanded
passage through Anangpal’s territory in order to invade Multan; but
Anangpal refused to give any, whereupon the Muslim aggressor marched on
Anangpal and defeated him. Anangpal had to retreat and when Mahmud
went ahead to Multan, Anangpal again organized a united Hindu stand for
protecting the Hindu religion. Once again, the Hindu-Muslim armies met in
the vicinity of the Indus, in A.D. 1008, when the Hindus fought so furiously
that in the afternoon, the Muslim formation was broken through and there
was confusion in the Muslim ranks. Even Sultan Mahmud had prepared to
leave the battlefield to make a retreat, when all of a sudden, Anangpal’s
elephant, scared by the shower of burning arrows, turned round and started
running amuck. This was the most unfortunate thing, which had very often
brought about the Hindu collapse, but no sufficient precaution was ever
taken to prevent it. A great havoc was wrought by this retreating elephant
among the Hindu ranks. Mahmud was quick enough to seize the
opportunity of this decisive turn of the battle and reorganizing the choicest
of his scattered soldiers, he once again fell upon the bewildered Hindu army
and in a deadly struggle defeated it. But the Muslim army was no less
worsted; so instead of pursuing Anangpal, Mahmud satisfied himself with
the success he got and returned to Ghazni. But as it became quite clear to
him that unless and until Anangpal was humbled completely, no Muslim
power could be established in Punjab, he assailed the latter for the third
time.
This time unfortunately, Anangpal had nobody to help him. Yet he went to
war with the remnant of his loyal army and, as a brave King that he was, he
died in the thick of the fray.
369. Thus, King Jaipal and his son Anangpal and thousands of their brave
soldiers boldly faced, and fought against the early ferocious Muslim
onslaughts in Punjab and laid down their lives for the protection of the
Hindu state and the Hindu religion. They did their sacred duty of arresting
the enemy thrust.