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

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.

664. 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
665. 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.
666. 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.

670. 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
671. 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.
672. 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.
673. 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.

686. 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.
687. 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

blocks of stones that were required for this purpose were intentionally
procured from the demolished Hindu temples and the idols therein.
Raids on Chitod and Hindu Victories
690. While Kutubuddin was conquering the Punjab, Delhi, Kanouj and
other Hindu states, he was uneasy about the Rajput states. Soon he learnt of
the death of Rana Samarsingh of Chitod and of the succession of his minor
son, Karna, to the throne. He was not a fool to let go this fine opportunity
to subdue it. But the mother of the minor king of Chitod, Karundevi, was
very brave and of great ablilities. That young mother-queen took the
leadership of the army and inspiring the other neighbouring Hindu states to
fight on her side, dealt a memorable defeat on the Muslim army in a battle
near Ambar (Amber or Amer). In order to avoid complete destruction,
Kutubuddin retreated to Delhi. Later on, when Rahup succeeded Karna to
the throne of Chitod, Kutubuddin's army once again marched on Chitod.
But once again, the Rajputs put the Muslim army to rout. Rana Rahup
proved to be a very able ruler. The Muslims, therefore, never thought of
invading Chitod till his death.
691. But it must be remembered here that even while the Muslims
launched repeated attacks on the Hindu states, the Hindus as a rule, never
invaded them nor ever pursued the fleeing Muslim army, nor again besieged
the Muslim localities left behind and destroyed them or their masjids. It is
because the Hindus never thus retaliated the Muslim aggression owing to
their perverse sense of virtues, the latter again and again perpetrated these
crimes against the former.
692. After Kutubuddin’s death in A.D. 1210, one or two incapable Sultans
came to the throne of Delhi, but as they were soon deposed, Sultana Razia
began to rule. She was well trained in the affairs of the State by Kutubuddin
himself. She attended the court or her army in the guise of a man. Later on,
she fell in love with a trusty slave of hers, named Jalaluddin, who chiefly
manoeuvred things in the court and began to live openly with her. This was,
however, most detestable to the Turkish noblemen of her court, because
Jalaluddin was a Negro. The Turks thought themselves to be of high rank and
despised the Negroes as lowbred.
693. This will make another point clear to the reader that although the
Turks, the Mongols, the Arabs, the Pathans, the Negroes (Abyssinians) and
others called themselves Muslims, and proudly proclaimed the absence of
caste differences and exhibited in place and out of place, the equality of

status for all in order to belittle the Hindus on that account, they were not
altogether free from those caste differences. These distinctions were on the
contrary, far too pronounced amongst them and caused a good deal of
trouble.
694. Shortness of space compels us to refer the reader to a chapter in our
book, ‘Essay on Abolition of Castes’ (जात्युच्छेदक निबंध) named ‘Sects
and Factions Amongst the Muslims’.
695. In the end, the Turkish noblemen rose in rebellion against the Negro
J alaluddin and Sultana Razia under the leadership of Altunia, the governor
of Sarhind, and defeated Razia in a battle, whereupon, Razia cast her spell
upon the victor Altunia and married him. The newly-wedded couple
marched on Delhi once again, but were defeated and killed by the noblemen
and the army there. After considerable court intrigues and plots, and
counter-plots a nobleman named ‘Bulban’, usurped the throne and became
the Sultan of Delhi.
Mongol Raids—Chengeezkhan
696. During the reign of this very slave dynasty, Mongol raids on India’s
farthest borders through Central Asia were causing constant trouble. Like
whirlwinds, great armies from Mongolia who had not so far sworn their
allegiance to Islam, went on trampling over, and crushing, all the nations and
countries from the Pacific to the Black Sea. Their leader, in those days, was
the world-famous Chengeezkhan, who till the last moment of his life, heaped
all possible ignominies and insults on the Muslim and Arab States and the
Muslim religion. He deposed and killed the Khaliph of Baghdad, whom the
Muslims highly respected as the political and religious representative of God,
and razed to the ground the city of Baghdad. Yet the Allah could do
absolutely nothing against him. With his ploughshare of destruction, he
furrowed the vast territory right up to Russia without the least obstruction; he
overthrew the kingdom of Kiev in Russia, ravaged the whole tract straight up
to the Black Sea with massacre, plunder, arson and annexed it to his trans-
continental empire. But no power on this vast earth dared restrain this
destructive hand of Chengeezkhan! On their way back from Russia, these
Mongol armies were obviously to dash violently against India. But quite
mysteriously, he went straight off to Mongolia, after first subduing the
Muslim kingdom of Ghazni and quite suddenly died there in A.D. 1227.
Later on, this extensive empire passed into the hands of one of this Mongol
race—Kublai Khan. These Mongols had already reduced the whole of China

and Korea. Kublai Khan made the age-long Chinese capital of Peking his
own.
697. One after-effect of this Mongol-Turkish struggle was that they had a
mixed progeny, which was called Moghal or Mughal. These Moghals
frequently tried to rush into India and finally reached Delhi. Some of them
took to Islam, but the old Muslims did not treat them equally; they
considered them to be low-born. These Moghals founded in Delhi, a
separate colony of theirs, named ‘Moghalpura’. Some others of them went
to the Rajputs for shelter because the old Muslims scoffed at them.
Especially, some two thousand of them sought employment in the army of
the valiant Hindu king of Ratanbhor.
698. Sultan Bulban of the Slave Dynasty was, in a sense, the most
powerful and able; he called himself the true representative of Allah. But as
regards his hatred towards the Hindus, he surpassed everybody from the
emperor to the meanest of servants. He imposed various heavy taxes on the
Hindus, forbade their pilgrimages to the holy places while their forcible
conversions and massacres went on unceasingly from village to village.
699. Bulban died in old age in A.D. 1286. There being no able person
from the Slave Dynasty to succeed him, within four years, a nobleman from
the Khilji family, Jalaluddin, slew the sons and grandsons of Bulban and
proclaimed himself the Sultan of Delhi, putting a stop to the Slave Dynasty
for ever, and starting his own.
Khilji Dynasty
700. This Khilji dynasty of Jalalluddin called itself Pathans (Afghans), if
at all it was of Turkish extraction. Jalalluddin himself was, as the other
Sultans and Muslims were, fired with the devilish ambition to destory the
Hindu political, as well as religious power, root and branch. He was just, as
regards other departments of administration, but was partial to the Muslims.
Seeing the tremendous loss of Muslim lives in the siege of Ratanbhor, he
raised the siege and decamped saying, “I value a single hair of a Muslim
more than a hundred such forts.” But this wisdom of his was so belated, that
the cause for this action of his has to be sought in the unbeaten valour of the
Rajputs. After this failure, he never again troubled the Rajputs.
701. The old Jalalluddin really wanted to enthrone his one ambitious,
brave and staunch Muslim nephew, Allauddin after his own death. So he
had sent him with a large army to face the Rajputs. But not content with this
assignment, which seemed too meagre for his daring Hindu-hatred, he

marched straight off without the Sultan's permission to conquer the
southern Hindu states and rob them of their reported fabulous wealth, of
which he had lately grown covetous beyond every limit. The first Hindu
state to fall a victim to this unexpected attack of Allauddin was that of the
Yadava of Devgiri.
702. There is one special point to be noted as regards this southern
conquest of Allauddin. The Hindu society of the south had, for more or less
two thousand years, from the early beginnings of the modern history, i.e.
from 500 or 600 B.C. to the 13th century A.D., been enjoying complete
political, religious and social independence and had been economically
highly prosperous. It had never been successfully invaded throughout these
two thousand years. Whoever of the foreign invaders dared to do so, was
ruthlessly crushed on the borders themselves. So, this invasion of Allauddin
was the first of its kind and was bound to be successful with far-reaching
harmful effects. Because of this special revolutionary and harmful character
of this invasion of Allauddin, it has to be dealt with in a fresh chapter.
❑

Muslim Invasions on South India upto the
Beginnings of the 14th Century
703. Right from the beginnings of known history, i.e. from about 500 to
600 B.C. to the beginning of the 14th century, South India never knew any
great foreign invasion either by land or sea. The Hindu states there enjoyed
their political liberty and power almost unhampered and unimpeded. On the
contrary, millions of Hindu people and armies of the Kalings, Pandyas,
Chers, Chols, Andhras, Rashtrakuts, Chalukyas, Yadavas and others up to
Dwarka had victoriously spread their political and commercial supremacy,
their theological and scientific knowledge, their art and sculpture up to
Mexico on the one side and to central Africa on the other.
704-705. But this glorious achievement of the Hindu states of the South of
maintaining their independence for over two thousand years has never been
so specifically and forcibly stated anywhere in history! We, however,
challenge if any country or state of such magnitude as that of the continent
like South Indian peninsula can be found on the face of this earth, which
has valiantly maintained its independence, power and empire and kept
foreign invaders either by land or sea, off its territories for such a long
period!
706. And such a country like India, more than half of whose territory
enjoyed such a glorious past, is derided by some half-crazy jealous
historians, foreign as well as Indian, or by some Hindu-haters like Dr.
Ambedkar or by some quite ignorant writers, so as to say, “Indian history
from the beginning is a history of a slavish people sunk deep into foreign
bondage and constantly trampled under foreign heels. “The word ‘slavery’
sums up the whole history of the Hindus who have been dragging on the
poor existence for tens and scores of centuries!”
707. At least, from now onwards, every Indian or non-Indian historian
must, for the love of truth, mention specifically this glorious peculiarity of
South India! Then alone, their writings would deservedly be called history!!
The Credit due to the Hindus of the North
708. Of course, while speaking of this glorious achievement of the South
of India—of maintaining its independence and vast empire over such a
long period—due credit must be given to the Hindu warriors, who