मेरा आजीवन कारावास / माझी जन्मठेप (स्वातंत्र्यवीर सावरकर - काले पानी का ऐतिहासिक संस्मरण)

works bearing on England, Italy, America and India. We had novels ranging from Charles Dickens to Count Leo Tolstoy; and we had works of Kropatkin. The library had English writings of Vivekananda and Ramtirtha; works of the German Historian Trietske and of the German Philosopher Nietzche. Plato's Republic, Aristotle's Politics and Blunt- chili's Theory of the State as well as Rousseau's Social Contract, found their place on its shelves. Our political friends had thus succeeded in bringing into one place the most representative collection of books on subjects of general interest and of deep educational value, in almost all the vernaculars of India, and in the English language. It was a fine library of about two thousand volumes available to all the inmates of the Silver Jail; and all could profit by it, if they had the desire in them to read and improve. Books on Theosophy abounded in this collection. We had to carry on a long struggle for securing works on politics for this library. Excepting one liberal-minded Superintendent, all other officers of this jail regarded this library with deep suspicion. It was an eye-sore to them. When a high official from India happened to visit this jail, the first concern of Mr. Barrie was to hide these works on politics from the official's gaze. Mr. Barrie was afraid that if the officer saw them, he was sure to take him to task for it. But as time went on, everything passed muster with him. In course of time the officers themselves offered their collection of books for keeping in our library, and issued books from the library for their own personal use. One of these officers presented to our library all his books on theosophy from the works of Mrs. Annie Besant down to the latest work of Krishna Murti on "My Gurudeo".

I read all these books carefully. Not a single book in that library I had left unread. Some of them I read over again, and I made my companions study works on politics, political history and economics with particular attention. I made them write summaries and discourses on them so that the knowledge they had derived from these books should remain a permanent treasure with them. Our Sunday meetings developed, in course of time, into lectures by them on the different subjects they had studied. Books like Bluntchill's The Theory of the State' I taught them in the spirit of a regular college class.

All the Sanskrit books in the library belonged to us. None was bought from outside. Most of them were translations with the Sanskrit text embodied in them. All Upanishads, the Rig Veda, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, the Brahma Sutras, the Sankhya texts, the Karikas of Ishwar Chandra, the Yoga Sutras, all these works we studied here in translations and along with their originals.

Whenever a new book in Bengali, Marathi, Sanskrit or English was published, we ordered a copy of it for our library, if we found it worth having. Thus though we were far away from our homes, and from the world, we could know everything that was happening there, and had our finger on the pulse of every moment in that world. Away from it, far away from it, as we were, these movements and this new information communicated a new hope to our hearts, and a new energy to our brain. I used several other ways to inspire the hearts of my political friends with the highest sentiment, long before the library had taken its present form. For instance I set them a question to state