भारतीय इतिहास के ६ स्वर्णिम पृष्ठ (वीर सावरकर - विदेशी आक्रान्ताओं पर विजय गाथा)
Six Glorious Epochs of Indian History by Veer Savarkar
स्वातंत्र्यवीर विनायक दामोदर सावरकर द्वारा
dominated countries of every single Muslim! ❑
.
12.
A Resume
- The various points that have been discussed at length in the foregoing
chapters, viz. Ch. V to XI of this book, can now be briefly summarized here
into a consistent whole. - In the historic past, India, too, like all other great nations, had been
invaded by the Ionians, Sakas and Huns and other non-Hindu wild people.
But after centuries of violent struggle with them, all the Hindu nations
stamped out their political dominance by smashing their armed might on the
various battlefields and became independent again and again. Moreover, it
converted the millions of the Ionian, Saka and Hun foreigners who settled
down here in various provinces during the years of those hard struggles, and
taught them the Vedic cult, the worship of the Vedic gods and goddesses, and
the Sanskrit civilization and culture, so as to merge them so completely
amongst its own people as to leave not a single trace of their original non-
Hindu races and names behind. - When the unprecedented calamity of the Muslim aggression fell on
India, the Hindus kept on stubbornly fighting the aggressors for over a
thousand years or so, and ultimately shattered the Muslim power as
completely as they did the non-Hindu Saka-Hun empires; and once again,
they established their political independence! Yet, they could not recover
their tremendous loss of numerical strength, which was brought about by the
forcible conversions nor could they regain the Indian areas actually occupied
by the Muslim settlers here, nor even could they Hinduise the Muslims as
completely as they did the Ionian, the Saka, the Hun and other non-Hindus!
Why? - The answer to this main vexing question is chiefly and thoroughly
discussed with adequate historical proofs in chapters V to XI of this book.
The conclusion that one arrives at after evaluating the contemporary events
and circumstances is that as soon as the Muslim rule was overthrown, or was
in the process of being overthrown, neither the Hindus at large, nor the
Hindu rulers ousted the Muslim religious dominance even when proper
opportunities presented themselves, and although they were far more
strongly armed than their Muslim opponents. They did not convert even a
single Muslim to Hinduism by persuasion—let alone by force!
- Had the victorious Hindu nation instantly broken off all bans on food-
exchange, inter-marriages, (re)conversion, seafaring and other refractory
social and religious traditions and reconverted all the Muslims—whether
converted or original—and absorbed them in the then prevailing caste
structure of the Hindu society, of course with due regard for the status and
qualifications of the persons concerned (as they had already done with the
Saka, Hun and other subjugated foreigners, in the by-gone days), like Spain,
India would immediately have been rendered Muslimless! Hindusthan would
have been at that very time, the place of the Hindus in the truest sense of the
term.
636-637. This treatise deals with the Muslim invasions of India during the
period covering over a thousand years from A.D. 700 to A.D. 1800 and the
chain of consequent Hindu-Muslim wars. Naturally, the points raised in this
discussion apply only to the conditions prevailing during that period.
Therefore, while reading such historical dissertations and treatises, the reader
must always bear in mind one important fact that the actions and the codes of
conduct, which are, or seem to be most proper, beneficial and necessary in
the context of the particular conditions obtainable during that period and in
respect of persons and places concerned, may not necessarily be proper,
beneficial under different conditions or during another period. They might
even be highly objectionable, detrimental and so unnecessary at times under
different conditions or with different persons. May those actions then refer to
religion or politics or other walks of life! Samartha Ramdas Swami, well-
versed in religious and political sciences, has succinctly made the same point
in the following words:
समया सारखा समयो ये ना।
नेम कची चालेना
नेम धरिता राजकारणा
व्यत्ययो पडे। श्री दासबोध दशक 18-6-6
“Conditions are not exactly similar, nor can one rule prevail (for ever)! If
one rule is followed (every time) in politics, difficulties arise.
[Ramdas—Shree Dasbodh - 18.6.6]
Hindu War Policy on The Religious and
Political Front
638-639. It is made amply clear in chapters V to XII of this book that in
their religio-political war with the Muslims, which the Hindus fought most
tenaciously for centuries together, the Hindu war-policy had not been
sufficiently strong to defeat the Muslim on the religious front. Why, it
proved to be definitely weak and suicidal in comparison with the
diabolically ferocious war-strategy of the Muslims on that front. For, the
Hindu nation had completely forgotten, at least in respect of the religious
side of it, that a nation has, as a rule, to adopt a war-strategy far stricter,
crueller and more unrelenting than that of the unscrupulous enemy it wants
to conquer.
640. During the Vedic and the Puranic (mythological) period, the
ancestors of the Hindu Nation had to fight the Daityas, the Danavs and the
Rakshasas, the cruellest, most atrocious and cunning cannibals of the time.
It is because (as the Vedic and Puranik stories show) those of our ancestors,
our gods, our emperors, the Vedic Rishis who chanted war canticles, the
epic poets of the Puranans and all those who actively participated in the war
could become more atrocious, more deceptive and cunning, and far crueller
than those enemies like the Rakshasas and others. It is because they could
formulate an adequate war policy to meet the ever-changing guiles of the
enemy and practise it effectively so that they could always succeed in those
various wars, and our nation too became stronger and more expansive than
before.
641. It was not on the political front alone, but on the religious front too,
that the enemy had to be faced in those times! When Vishwamitra took
Shreeram to the forest to protect the Rishis, the latter was told at great
length how those Rakshasas destroyed the religious rites of the time, viz.
the sacrifices, and how the daughters of the Rishis were kidnapped. Later on
in, Dandakaranya, Shreeram came to know what great havoc had the
Rakshasa army of Ravan wrought upon the hermitages of the Rishis, who
were in a minority there, with their sacrificial rites, with their colonies and
even with their lives. Ram was also shown at various places the heaps of
bones of those Rishis, whose blood those cannibals had drunk and whose
flesh they had eaten. This will clearly show that this long-drawn
mythological war of our ancestors with the Rakshasas was fought not only
on the political but also on the religious front. And at that time, those gods
and god-like emperors, too, considered it the holiest religious duty to show
super-savage cruelty to beat down the cruelty of the Rakshasas, to be arch-
devils against the devils! (For a fuller discussion of the point, please refer to
paragraphs 460 to 461 of this book). It is enough to mention here that the
incarnation of Nursinh, who appeared in the most terrifying form in order to
protect the great devotee Prahlad and who tore to pieces his religious
enemy, the wicked Hiranya Kashipu with his leonine talons was—
A God-Head of our Nation
was our leader! The story of Kacha also shows that in the war, our gods
followed the policy—
642. व्रजन्ति ते मूढधियः पराभवम्। भवन्ति मायाविषु ये न
मायिनः॥
To fight the crafty enemy with super-craft, to destroy barbarism with
hyper-barbarity, as the only effective means of annihilating the foe, was the
praiseworthy principle of religious warfare of our ancestors till, at least, the
close of the Puranic era.
643. However, when gods fought against other gods, or when there were
internecine wars like that of the Kouravas and the Pandavas, the war
strategy differed completely. No single charioteer was to be attacked by
many charioteers; the submissive or surrendering warrior was to be given
his life. Such considerations for justice and injustice were to be actually
shown on the battlefield. This ethics of war was preached because it was
honoured by both the contending parties.
644. But, as we have already pointed out in paragraph 315, the invasions
of varying magnitudes of the Persians, the Ionians, the Greeks, the Sakas
and the Kushanas and the Huns, which began at the close of the Puranic
period and continued during the early part of our historic past, were all
made mainly for political ascendancy and not for any religious enmity.
Their own religions were more or less like the offshoots of Hinduism itself.
Later on, after their defeat by our Hindu ancestors, the millions of these
foreign invaders, who chose to settle here, merged into the Hindu society
completely. So during this early historical period, in the absence of any
religious aggression by these foreigners on our religion, our ancestors
fought pure and simple political wars with them with effective strategical
counter-moves and vanquished them completely. As these wars were purely
political in nature, the question of religiosity or irreligiosity, of extreme
kindness, truth, violence or non-violence or other fine distinctions of
principles never arose! Naturally, the tendency to retaliate in the same
fashion even on the religious front—to face religious aggression with
counter religious offensives—to meet cruelty with supra-cruel blows, craft
with super-craft, violence with extreme violence and to consider this war
policy to be a highly religious duty of a brave warrior—lay dormant in our
national mind, because there was no occasion for them to use such war
tactics on the religious front long after the religious wars with the
Rakshasas.
645. Moreover, during this intervening period, the different religious sects
that were really the offshoots of the Vedic religion, and had a strong
propensity to Sanyas (renunciation or asceticism) and extreme non-violence
like the Ajivakas, the Jains, the Buddhists and others, preached to the
society that true religion meant extreme non-vidence, kindness, love and
truth and nothing else. Among the rest of the Vedic population, class
distinctions and their development into caste differences and the religious
traditions about food-exchange, touchables and untouchables, which cut to
pieces the composite life of the society, were growing stronger and these
very, really anti-social traditions came to be considered as true religion.
Later on, flesh-eating was prohibited even in the sacrificial rites. The fact
that the extreme forms and manifestations of truth most often prove to be
the harmful vices was lost sight of by the religious ideology of the time,
while the excessive inopportune and suicidal use of virtues, which ruined
the nation, was itself considered the highest form of religious conduct.
Generally speaking, truthful conduct is a virtue. To satisfy a promised gift
or word is also a virtue! But when in the heat of extolling virtues to the
skies, the Puranas (mythological stories) told the story of Harishchandra,
who made good his promise given to Vishwamitra in his dream by
presenting him with his kingdom and such other childish stories, they
definitely changed the national war-policy into an imbecile, weak and
suicidal one. No words can adequately condemn this influence of the
Puranas. More respectable than this truthful conduct was considered the
practice of non-violence as the highest form of virtue, not only by the Jains
and the Buddhists but in some of the Vaishnav texts also, which later on
hastened our terrible downfall as determinedly and as enormously as even
our enemies, the Muslims, could not perhaps accomplish. Manliness and
valour came to be condemned as the vilest of vices. The unmanly, the
imbecile, the valour-lacking coward, not only lacking the ability but even
the desire to avenge the national insult and injustice, came to be highly
respected in religious circles as the greatest and most magnanimous saint,
ripe for an honourable place in heaven.
646. This point has already been adequately discussed with sufficient
proofs and illustration in chapter VIII under the caption ‘Perverted Sense of
Virtues’ and in other chapters also; and it will be touched again, while we
shall be narrating the events on the political front. Here, it has to be
remembered that as all the invasions on India after the Puranic times had
been political and not religious (at least not of such huge dimensions as
those of the Rakshasas so as to shake the very foundation of our religion),
we had completely forgotten the old war-strategy to meet such terrible
religious aggression. Our very definitions of virtues and religion and their
practice had undergone a complete change. The war-strategy of Nursinh of
the ancient times, which sought a tooth for a tooth and an eye for an eye had
now become vegetarian, submissive, tolerant and shameless!
647. Naturally, when Islam invaded Hinduism with far more ferocity and
bitterness and with more dangerous weapons than the Rakshasas of the
Puranic age, our Hindu ancestors of the seventh century had no other war-
strategy to face it with than the imbecile, impotent and suicidal—one which
offered milk to a venomous serpent. To encounter the wolf, the sheep had
preferred its own neck! All this, as also our consequent enormous losses on
the religious front, has been clearly shown in the earlier chapters. Hence,
we shall now begin a critical study of the political side of this Hindu-
Muslim epic struggle.
The Age-Long Relation of the Arabs with
India
648. When I first read the word मुसल (Musal) in my student days in
‘Mousal Parva’ in one of the secondary Puranas like the Hariwansh, and
wondered how the huge rushes uprooted by the Yadavas from the
seashores became big pounding pestles, which crushed their bones as
some lethal weapons would, I at once hit upon one probable explanation
that perhaps the word, ‘Mousal’, might be an attempt at pun on the word
Musal (मुसल) by the Puranic punsters, and that it might have been
suggested by the word Musalman given to the Arab traders of the past
after their conversion to Islam. But this fanciful explanation could not then
be supported by the time-sense and other coordinating historical events.
649. Much later in the Andamans, when I began reading a lot of Bengali
literature, I remember to have then perused an essay about the passing
away of Lord Krishna either by Shree Madhusudan Datta, the famous
Bengali poet, of the narative ‘Meghanad’ and the promoter of the
‘Amitrakshar’ metre, or by Bankimchandra, the poet who sang the
national song, Vande Mataram! The said essay tries to offer a plausible
explanation of the final exit of Balaram, after the death of Lord Krishna,
along with his followers into the sea in his original form of Shesh(शेष), a
snake. It meant to say that Balaram entered the Western sea at Dwarka in
his ships and went away to some foreign island in a serpentine fashion. I
then remembered to have read a parallel instance mentioned by an Arya
Samaji traveller in the account of his travels. About fifty years ago, this
Arya Samaji traveller had visited Arabia to see the actual condition of the
Hindu residents of the place. After enquiry, he found there is a small
section of people who grew tufts of hair on the top of their heads (as the
Brahmins and other Hindus here did till very recently). They told him that,
according to a very sacred legend handed down to them by their
forefathers, they were supposed to have gone there from India at some
very ancient time. It is believed that at the time of a great war in India,
they had left for Arabia and established a colony there, but never got
themselves mixed up with the factions of the natives there, nor with their
feuds and wars. That was why they could be seen in their much the same
original state. The inference that the said traveller has drawn from this, is
that these strange people must have been the same Hindus who had left
India at the close of the epic struggle of the Kouravas and the Pandavas in
Mahabharat.
650. If we then assume from the foregoing statements that Yadavas led
by Balaram had gone to Arabia and formed a big colony there, two more
things seem to support such an assumption. The first is that Tamil was
originally called अरवी (Aravi). The aborigines of Arabia were mostly
Shaivites, worshipping the (Shiv) ling (as most of historians agree) and
their priests were called Druids (Dravid द्रविड़) in English, the same class
that seems to have existed in Britain and Ireland as per the old legends told
by the historians.
651. This is not the place to relate all these and other legends bearing on
this topic, but it can be fairly assumed that Arabia and India had very close
ties and trade relations from very ancient times, and there must have been
Indian colonies established in that peninsula, and we can infer that like
those in Java, Sumatra and other lands in the Eastern Ocean, in this land in
the Western Ocean too, now known as Arabia and others, there must have
once thrived Indian (especially South Indian) colonies, kingdoms and
civilization. But we cannot offer it here, as yet, as any proven fact or
theory. Only the various details leading to this conclusion have simply
been summarized here briefly, so that they might be of some use to some
future student of history, who might be attracted to it.
652. It is only pertinent here to write about the relation of India and
Arabia during the seventh century when the Arabs had already courted
Islam. Islam was born after the birth of Muhammad in A.D. 570, and it
took at least forty to fifty years for the Arabs to join it. They had civil wars
on the question of adopting this new faith. Yet the Muslim history is
believed to start from their Hizri era in A.D. 622 and we might as well
accept that belief for the present discussion.
653. Even before these new Arabic Muslim aggressors crossed their
borders and fell on their neighbouring Persian empire, the Hindu states
had practically spread once again to the very distant borders of
Chandragupta Maurya's empire beyond the Indus. The Chinese traveller,
Huen-tsang entered India from the north-east about A.D. 629 and has left
an eyewitness account of whatever he saw here. According to him, the
Hindu borders had stretched far beyond the Indus to include what are now
called Kabul, Ghazni and Gandhar. Almost all the Chinese, who came to
India during those years, had to cross these Hindu states and the Indus,
before they stepped into India.
The Chinese of that era called the Hindus ‘Shintsu’
654. That is why, they in China are referred to India by its most ancient
name of Sindhu, and the Hindu people as ‘Shintsu’. It is quite plain that
this ‘Shintsu’ was a Chinese corruption of Sindhu. This is yet another
proof on the Chinese side that the word Hindu is derived originally from
the word Sindhu.
The first Arab invasion of Sindh and their defeat
655. Most of the modern histories refer to the Arab invasion on King
Dahir as the first invasion, wherein the Hindu King was completely
defeated. But this is a blatant falsehood. The first Arab invasion of Sindh
took place in A.D. 640, in which the invaders were completely vanquished
and their commander-in-chief was killed by the Hindus (cf: paragraph
324).
The second major invasion of Dindh by the Arabs
656. But in A.D. 711, however, Mohammed Kasim marched on Sindh at
the head of a fifty-thousand-strong army and while facing it bravely,
Maharaj Dahir of Sindh was destroyed (cf. paragraphs 327 to 331).
657. But immediately within fifty years of this fall of King Dahir, the
Rajputs and specially their leader, Bappa Raval of Chitod, wrested it away
from the Arabs and he and other Hindu kings pushed their boundaries right
from the Pariyatra Mountain, i.e. Hindukush mountains, Kashmir, Gandhar
(which is now called Afghanistan) straight up to Sindhusagar (which we
now shamelessly call Arabian sea). This Hindu sovereignty over the vast
region lasted for three hundred years.
Three hundred years amount to about seven Generations
658. Even when the Hindus held their sway over such a vast region for
more than three hundred years and even when Sindh had been reconquered
by the Rajputs within twenty-five years of its loss to Kasim. most of the
English, as also the Hindu historians, never so much as mention it. On the
contrary, great historians, litterateurs, well-known professors, all the world
over as also the school-going children, have all along been repeating
blindly that right from the time Kasim conquered Sindh, the Muslims
began their onward march right up to Rameshwaram and for all these
twelve hundred years or so from A.D. 711, to the time the British left India
in 1947, the Hindus had been rotting in slavery. This assumption is as false
as it is insulting to the Hindus. This is an unbearable perversion of facts.
659. Hereafter, at least a truth-loving writer of history should
scrupulously avoid this falsehood, this perversion of facts from school or
college textbooks as also from those of a greater worth and importance.
These three hundred years
660. For during these three hundred years i.e., up to A.D. 1000 or so in
the whole of India, right from Hindukush to Ceylon and to Burma in the
east, the Hindu Sovereign states ruled proudly. At such an early date as
that, the Hindu kings in the south such as the Cher, Chowl, Pandya,
Rashtrakut and others, sometimes the one, at others the next, ruled the vast
southern seas so powerfully as to call themselves Trisamudreshwar. To say
that the whole of India sweated in slavery under the Muslims or some
other rulers, ignoring its prosperous and independent sovereign status, is to
belie history.
From A.D. 1000 To A.D. 1030
661. All of a sudden, like a comet, rose Mahmud of Ghazni at this time.
At his accession to the throne, he vowed to Muslimize the whole of India
and as has been already described in paragraphs 365 to 375, carried on a
series of depredations and arson, religious persecution and rapes, and
pollution and conversion, throughout the vast tract from Multan in Punjab
to Someshwar in Sourashtra.
662. But it is because, at such cataclysmal times, the Hindus showed
exemplary valour and perserevence and forbearance in facing all these
calamities, never losing self-respect or courage, that Hindu states could
again raise their banners overthrowing the Muslim ascendancy hardly
within twenty-five to thirty years of Mahmud Ghazni's death in A.D.
1030, with the sole exception perhaps of the northern part of Punjab
beyond the Indus. This can surely be cited as the astonishing illustration of
the tenacity of any nation for that matter.
663. Secondly, it must be remembered that during the thirty or forty
years of the political havoc wrought by Mahmud of Ghazni in the north,
the whole of South India had been displaying daring and adventure while
enjoying independence, prosperity and the mastery of the three seas as
nonchalantly as before.
- This is why even during those thirty or forty years of Ghazni’s raids,
India as a whole can never be said to be slaving under the foreign heels.
Of course, we do not deny that a small part of the north-western Punjab
was annexed by Ghazni, establishing political as well as religious
ascendancy firmly over there. However, it must also be borne in mind that
even at that time, Kashmir was a Hindu state.
Hundred-and-Fifty years after the death of Mahmud of Ghazni in
A.D. 1030 - A hundred-and-fifty years, i.e. about five generations after A.D.
1030, the whole of India, right from Kashmir to Assam and Burma in the
north and Rameshwaram in the South, was politically independent,
powerful and prosperous as before. Great preachers, saints and mahants
and priests following the path of Shree Shankaracharya were, along with
Smritikars Deval and Medhatithi, leading the cultural life of the whole of
India and its overseas colonies. Sanskrit was the Indian priestly language
throughout. Kashi was the cultural centre of the whole Hindu nation. The
great wounds suffered by our Hindu nation on the political front during the
raids of Mahmud of Ghazni were healed up by rulers dining these years. If
the temple of Somnath was rebuilt on this side, new sky-high temples like
that of Bhuvaneshwar and religious centres in Orissa and Assam rose to
their full glory. The Hindu mastery of the Eastern, Western and the
Southern seas, their trade and commerce, to-and-fro movement of
thousands of their troops, their royal visits and return visits up to Maxico
in the far east and to Africa in the west, continued unhampered and,
therefore, the Indians overseas could keep constant contact with their
motherland, and thereby prospered materially as well as culturally. - Can any Hindu-hater dare say, therefore, of this period at least, that
the whole of India was rotting in abject slavery?
From the 12th Century A.D. to the end of
the 13th Century A.D.
667. After the death of Mahmud of Ghazni, the Muslim power there grew
far too weak because, in the first place, the population there consisted
mainly of the aboriginal tribe converted quite recently by craft or coercion
to Islam and secondly, because the Arabian Muslim States were being
destroyed completely by the Mongols and the Turks, the two great Asian
tribes that had not yet sworn allegiance to Islam, during their sweeping
raids through the vast tract of Central Asia right up to Europe.
668. As has already been pointed out, many big and small Hindu
communities and royal families ruled this region for a long time. Ghuri was
one of these Hindu communities round about Ghazni, which was wholly
converted to Islam during the Muslim religio-political aggressions. Being
forced to follow the Muslim socio-religious practices for generations, this
originally Hindu community of the Ghuries became too staunch and
bigoted in their faith, that they ardently desired to rule the other Muslims in
Ghazni. From the same Muslim (yet originally Hindu), Ghuri community
rose to power one Mohammad Ghori, who, subjugating all the warring
tribes during the internecine battles that broke out after the death of
Mahmud of Ghazni, finally proclaimed himself, the Sultan of the State. In
order to enlist the loyal support of all the Muslims, he made everywhere
the stock-in-trade proclamation, which reverberated throughout that region
and the northwest region of Hindusthan, that he would force all the kafirs
(meaning Hindus) in India to accept Islam and would found an empire
there.
669. However, in spite of his ambition, he could not do anything of the
kind Mahmud of Ghazni had done before him in his seventeen horrible
predatory raids because of the adverse circumstances. In A.D. 1176,
Mohammed Ghori first captured the strong fort of Ooch near the
confluence of the Panchnad with the Indus. Enraged at the weakness of her
husband, the queen in the fort killed him and married her daughter to the
victorious Mohammed surrendering the overlordship of the region at the
same time.
- Then in order to size up the Hindu kingdoms, Mohammed Ghori
marched on the weakest one of Gujarat by proceeding stealthily along the
borders of Rajasthan. For, the King of Gujarat having died, the Queen and
her military chief enthroned a minor. This led Mohammed Ghori to think
that it was weak enough to be attacked. But he was misled by appearances.
For, in learning of Ghori's ensuing invasion, the Hindu army of Gujarat,
augmented by those of other sympathising Hindu Kings, marched forward
to the mountain-ranges of Abu. The Queen herself fought in the battle most
valiantly, urging all the soldiers to defend the infant king whom, she said,
she had delivered to their care. Inflamed by her words, the whole Hindu
army fought so furiously that the Muslims were routed completely in all
directions. Mohammed Ghori himself escaped narrowly and fled straight to
his domain beyond the borders.
Second major defeat of Mohammed Ghori by the Hindus - Mohammed Ghori, however, was not to be daunted by adversities.
So, without being discouraged by his recent defeat at Abu, he once again
marched on India in A.D. 1191, invading this time the territory of Prithviraj
Chouhan, whereupon that gallant monarch of Delhi along with as many
Hindu rulers as he could then gather, advanced against Ghori and joining
battle at Tarayan to the north of Karnool near Panipat, dealt a crushing
defeat on the invader after a bloody day. Mohammed Ghori himself was
captured alive by Prithviraj. This battle is known as the Battle of Talavadi. - Emperor (Samrat) Prithviraj and his feudatory princes were after all
Hindus by birth and belonged to the topmost Rajput ranks. Hence, they
sincerely believed that to let go the captive national enemy alive, however
treacherous he might be, to give back his kingdom with all pomp and show,
was the highest form of religious conduct, conducive to heavenly bliss as
regards a true warrior was concerned. - सांप बिखारी देशभूमिचा ये घेउं चावा।
अवचित गांठुनि ठकवुनि भुलवूनि कसाहि ठेचावा॥
Were a serpent (an inveterate national enemy) to come with a view to
biting the motherland, he should be smashed to pieces with a surprise
attack, deceit or cunning or in any other way possible. Although this war-
strategy of Shree Krishna and Chanakya was taught to the Hindus long ago,
at that time, it appeared to them like one of the five deadliest sins. For, as
we have already shown in paragraphs 397 to 454, the whole of the Hindu
nation was at that time utterly infatuated with the perverted sense of virtues.
But the Muslims, however, followed this very war-strategy most
scrupulously.
674. See how: Had Prithviraj Chouhan, instead of Mohammed Ghori,
invaded Ghazni and had the Muslims defeated the Rajputs (as the Rajputs
had actually done with Mohammed Ghori), they would have not only
killed Prithviraj but would also have converted, by using force and
cunning, all the captive Rajputs to Islam, would have made them their
wives and children slaves for the whole of their lives in their houses, and
the beautiful among the Hindu captive women Ghori himself might have
taken into his harem and ravaged. To such a damned, demoniacal enemy
of our religion like Mohammed Ghori, was mercy shown by Prithviraj and
the other confederated Rajput rulers, following sheepishly the textual
maxim क्षमा वीरस्य भूषणम् (a maxim to be used only in the case of
some noble and magnanimous enemy!) without the slightest consideration
being given to the propriety of time, place and the circumstances and
persons involved! Nay, they showed mercy not only to Mohammed Ghori
but even to the whole Muslim army, only to respect the noble Rajput
tradition of assuring full protection from fear to those who surrendered
meekly. Only an oral promise was obtained from Mohammed Ghori that
he would not again invade India and he was allowed to go alive. His
domain of Ghazni, too, was returned to him and proud, more of their
suicidal and credulous generosity than of their having defeated the Muslim
army of Mohammed Ghori, those Rajput warriors marched triumphantly to
Delhi and celebrated their victory!
But what did Mohammed Ghori do on Reaching Ghazni?
675. Did Mohammed Ghori forget his enmity to the Hindus because of
this generosity of Prithviraj Chouhan? No! On the contrary like a snake,
provoked by a slight injury, Mohammed Ghori and all the Muslims in his
kingdom, without any sense of gratitude for the Hindu imbecile generosity
were all the more embittered, and resolved to crush the Hindus altogether.
And with a huge army, Mohammed Ghori once again attacked Prithviraj in
A.D. 1193.
The Rajput ‘rasos’ and the best among them the ‘Prithviraj Raso’ of
Chand Bhat
676. In fact, it is impossible and improper to write any trustworthy history
of the Rajputs without closely studying the contemporary historical
accounts written by the Rajput Bhats, Charans in their heroic and, to some
exent, poetic style and known in that region as ‘Rasos’. But it is doubtful
whether amongst our historians, there be five or at the most ten such as have
read them with any scientific curiosity! That is why none of the histories
written of the Rajputs of the times or, for that matter of the whole Hindu
society of that age, with the solitary exception of that of Col. Tod, really
deserves to be truly called histories. They are mere translations or
transliterations of stray incoherent remarks and disconnected and perverted
accounts of the Muslim or the English writers. Independent ‘Rasos’ seem to
have been composed on valiant Rajput Ranas, proud of their religion
(Hamir Raso, Chhatrasal Raso, etc.). The ‘Rasos’ are not pure,
unadulterated histories! But the forceful and vivid descriptions of the
various events, their high fervour and the fact of their authors’ participation
to a lesser or greater degree, in those particular historical events, make
those grand incidents live, as it were, before the imagination of the reader,
as the above-mentioned sketchy outlines of chronological accounts can
never do. ‘Prithviraj Raso’ by the famous Chand Bhat, who was in the pay
of Prithviraj, bears out the above remark by its epic serenity, calm dignity
and moving pathos in the descriptions of the Hindus of the time and of its
account of the first Muslim raids from the north-west.
677. The Story of the fire race (अग्नि-कुल)
678. The Nagari Pracharini Sabha had undertaken to republish this
‘Prithviraj Raso’ in 1922-23, when 1 was in prison at Ratnagiri, where
some parts of it were sent to me on request by my brother for my essay on
Hindutwa. I do not know, however, whether this whole book was ever
published.
These non-Hindus are Shameless, we Hindus, fight shy!
निर्लज्ज म्लेच्छ लजै नहीं, हम हिन्दू लजवान्
679. The ‘Prithviraj Raso’ describes the Hindu-Muslim skirmishes and
frays in the epic style of Mahabharat, and the poet has praised the Hindus
highly for vanquishing Mohammed Ghori again and again and then setting
him free to go alive, because this noble act of the Hindus, he thought, added
to their glory! But when Mohammed Ghori again attacked Prithviraj in
A.D. 1193, violating his promise that he would never again invade India,
Chand Bhat wrote wrathfully, “We Hindus are scrupulous about religious
and irreligious conduct, about truth and falsehood, we fight shy of sinful
acts, but these non-Hindus (meaning Muslims) are utterly shameless!’’
680. But the breach of promise, which could Muslimize the whole of the
kafir state, was a highly religious duty for the Muslims, and because
Mohammed Ghori broke his promises again and again, he became a Gazi
among the Muslims! This fact also must be engraved on the hearts of the
Hindus that (the Muslims who acted irreligiously according to Chand Bhat
were blessed with success by God, whereas the Hindus who never broke
any promise but showed the quixotic greatness of setting the enemy free
alive, were crushed outright owing to their steadfast adherene to their so-
called religious conduct!
681. There was another reason why Mohammed Ghori thought it to be the
best opportunity to march against Prithviraj, Jaychand the King of Kanouj,
had secretly given a solemn promise to help him against Prithviraj, his
direst enemy, a promise that later proved fatal to himself. In A.D. 1193, the
Hindu-Muslim armies met at ‘Sthaneshwar, where in the thick of the fray
fell in the hands of the Muslims dead or alive the Rajput princes,
Chamundrai, Hamir, Hada and good many other warriors! Muslim losses in
lives were also terrible. All this detailed account should really be read, if
possible, from the ‘Prithviraj Raso’ itself, because in the historical accounts
by the Muslim writers, nothing but censure and condemnation of the kafirs
can only be met with, and with the exception of these poetical Rasos,
histories written by Hindu writers, do not simply exist. The Muslim writers
vouch that Prithviraj was, at length, killed in the battle and the Muslims
were victorious. Soon after this victory, Mohammed Ghori marched
straight to Delhi, because he had to perform his diabolically pious deed of
demolishing the Hindu temples, of slaughtering the masses of Hindus, of
arson and especially of ravaging the young wife of Prithviraj, the daughter
of Jaychand, Sanyogita, who was well-known at that time for her
exceptional beauty. Fast as Mohammed Ghori made for Delhi, faster still
went the tragic news of the defeat of Prithviraj and of his death or probable
capture by the Muslims, to the royal palace of Delhi, whereupon, according
to the pre-arranged plan, perhaps the empress Sanyogita lost not a minute
to face the danger boldly in the traditional Rajput way. At once, leaving
aside all consideration for wealth, parental love, fraternal affection, the
attachment to her earthly existence and breaking all ties of love and duty,
she jumped from the top-most floor of the palace and killed herself with the
word Jayhar (जयहर) --glory to God Shiv! on her lips, she performed
Jayhar—Johar! What of the empress, Sanyogita, hundreds of other Hindu
women leapt one after another into the Yamuna (Jamuna) and drowned
themselves before the Muslims could even touch or pollute them!
682. On reaching Delhi, Mohammed Ghori immediately set to plunder
and destroy the royal palaces and the citizens with fire and sword to his
heart’s content. Proclaiming next the establishment of the Muslim power
there, he appointed a trusted slave of his, one Kutubuddin, as his chief
administrator and went straight off to Ghazni. Later on, within two years in
A.D. 1195, Mohammed Ghori attacked Jaychand. With his administrator
Kutubuddin to assist him, he marched on Kanouj, where in a furious scuffle,
Jaychand was utterly vanquished and killed. In a sense, the Indian King
received a fitting reward for his high treason against the Hindu nation!
683. Nearly a hundred years or more had elapsed since the dreadful raids
of Mahmud of Ghazni and as such their recollection was growing fainter
like an evil hallucination or dream in the Hindu mind. So, with these two
invasions of Mohammed Ghori, every Hindu King, Emperor, Saint,
dignitary of every sort, down to the hut-dweller was shocked to the marrow
of his bones at this miserable plight of Hindu courage and strength.
Mohammed Ghori, too, was elated at this unexpected victory, and hearing
of Kashi (Benares) as the holiest of Hindu places of worship, he headed
straight for it in order to destroy Hindu religion.
684. The people at Kashi were taken unaware by this fanatical and
bloodthirsty raid and, as such, had no arrangement to face it. Naturally,
Mohammed Ghori captured Kashi in no time, started forthwith to slaughter
Hindu men and women, to plunder the Hindu houses, to ravish Hindu
women and specially to force countless Hindu men and women to accept
Islam and slavery. Above all, he raised to big heaps of rubble and brick every
Hindu temple and broke the idols within it to bits.
685. But he immediately heard the news that in the Hindu states beyond
and especially in Rajasthan, plans were being chalked out of encircling him;
and having the bitter experience of the united Hindu swordsmen twice
before, he satisfied himself with whatever he could achieve during one
sweep from Kanouj to Kashi (Benaras) and went back to Ghazni. As before,
he appointed his versatile, brave and trusted slave Kutubuddin himself as
the Governor of the recently won territory up to Kanouj.
- And alas! At this very evil, unpropitious moment, our age-old Capital
of the Hindu empire since the days of Yudhishthir, this our Indraprastha,
Hastinapur or modern Delhi was lost to the non-Hindus and there was laid
the foundation stone of the Muslim empire for centuries to come! Delhi
became the centre of servitude and remained so, rotting under the foreign
rule for the next five or six hundred years (with very short breaks in
between), till at last, the Marathas triumphantly hoisted their saffron-
coloured flag at Attock, and overthrowing the Muslim imperial power
beyond, made it the handmaid of the Hindu imperial authority. - Soon after he reached Ghazni, Mohammed Ghori was killed (in the
opinion of some Muslim historians) by a small band of soldiers in his
army, but Chand Bhat gives a colourful and detailed description in his
Raso of how Prithviraj seized the one unique opportunity to kill him and
avenged his defeat. Although no other support for this folklore can be
found, as yet, it is not unworthy of a mention here. The essence of this
superbly described folklore in the poetical ‘Prithviraj Raso’ is that
Prithviraj was captured alive by Ghori and was not killed in the battle.
Mohammed Ghori took him to Ghazni as a captive and struck out his eyes,
making him blind. At this shocking news, Chand Bhat went on his own to
Ghori’s court at Ghazni in order to do his traditional duty as a Bhat of
laying down his life for his emperor. Charans and Bhats were supposed to
bear a charmed life—they were not to be killed—and the Muslim rulers
also could not generally break this convention! Sultan Mohammed Ghori
too asked Chand Bhat to have his say. Chand Bhat was a well-known and
ready-witted, facile poet, who sang out at the top of his sonorous voice a
heroic ballad to mean, “My master is your captive and you are sure to end
his life as best you please. But my sole request is that I should also be
killed with him in the same or any other manner. Secondly, I submit that
the Sultan should himself witness a demonstration of the exceptional skill
of my master in the wonderful art of hitting the sound (शब्दबेध) in
archery. “This request made the Sultan curious about this wonderful art.
Even then, with every precaution, the necesary arrangments for the
demonstration were made. Twenty-one pans were hung in a row. Sultan
Mohammed sat eagerly with his select retinue and his noblemen at a high
place in the court to witness the feat. Chand Bhat and Prithviraj, the last
Hindu Emperor of Delhi, were made to sit before the pans in the wake of a
strong military guard. Then, as each pan was struck, the stroke rang clear
and loud. As soon as the sound rang out, the blinded Emperor Prithviraj
took an unmistakable aim at the pan concerned and hit the mark. As this
feat was repeated with exceptional accuracy of aim for twenty-one times,
the whole court was thrilled with wonder and admiration and the clapping
of hands went on unceasingly and finally the Sultan himself shouted aloud
‘shabas’ shabas’—bravo, bravo!! At that very moment, the captive Chand
Bhat sitting near Prithviraj composed a couplet (दोहा) on the spur of the
moment, telling Prithviraj to shoot, without wasting a moment, the Sultan
sitting at a particular distance, shouting ‘shabas, shabas—Bravo, bravo’.
At this, the blinded Emperor Prithviraj took an aim in the direction of the
Sultan shouting ‘Shabas, Shabas’ and killed him with a sharp arrow. At
once, there was an uproar and confusion everywhere, but before the guards
of the Sultan could fall upon them with their weapons, Prithviraj and
Chand Bhat drew out their own swords and cut off their own heads!
The Slave Dynasty
688. Soon after the death of Mohammed Ghori, his slave (governor)
administrator in India, Kutubuddin, himself became the Sultan and
established his independent kingdom at Delhi. Kutubuddin was a Turk by
birth, but as he was a slave of Mohammed Ghori, his dynasty is called the
Slave Dynasty.
The fictitious story of Kutubminar
689. The legend that he built the famous Kutubminar as a memorial to his
victory is altogether false. This pillar of victory was built as Vishnu stambh
—the pillar of Vishnu—by a certain Hindu emperor, most probably by
Samudra Gupta and was dedicated to Lord Vishnu. Recent excavations have
discovered an ancient idol of Shree Vishnu near the pillar, which supports
the above assertion. Thereafter, Prithviraj Chouhan improved it to a great
extent, so in the Rajput period it was sometimes called Prithvistambh. The
Muslims had grown very much fond of obliterating the names and all other
traces of the old monuments and stamping them with their own seals
wherever they went on with their expeditions. Hence in India, too, they
changed the old original names of the capitals they conquered, the holy
places of pilgrimage, the important sites, works of art and gave them all
their Muslim names. According to this mischievous habit, Kutubuddin
named this very monument of Vishnustambh, Kutubminar. At many places
on that pillar, he got the hymns and aphorisms from the Koran engraved in
Arabic, and added some new features to the pillar here and there. But the