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

the names of national leaders in Indian history from the fall of the Peshwas down to our times. I told them I would select from them the twelve who top the list by the total number of votes against their names. The discussion went on for a week and the names were at last submitted. In the list there was no name from among the leaders of the Mutiny of 1857. One alone had mentioned the name of Laxmibai of Jhansi. I called them together and discussed the mutiny with them in several meetings through lectures, conversation, and by questions and answers. I brought the book on the Indian Mutiny by Rajanikant. I pointed out to them how his designation that it was the Sepoy War was a mistake. I showed that it was really a revolutionary movement, a war of independence on a larger scale. Thereafter every one of them knew who were Tatya Tope, Nanasaheb Peshwa, Kunwar Singh and Laxmibai. They became familiar names to them. My study of the Koran Thomas a Kempis' " Imitation of Christ" was a favourite book of mine. When I began the study of Koran in England, I read it first in its English translation. Then I turned to its Bengali version. Back to India I read it in Marathi. I read it in the original with- a Mohammedan friend who always told me that its beauty and spirit could only be felt by its study in the tongue it was delivered. I read the scripture page by page with him, washing my hands and feet and sitting apart and with my mind concentrated on the text. I made my friend recite the suras and translate them into Hindi for me, as we studied the text together from day to day, at a stated hour, and in a devoted frame of mind. I then read Mohomad Ali's modern version of Koran in English. I had already read the English Bible twice. I had studied the ten principal Upanishads, finishing each of them in one month, and taking one whole year to complete them. I used to read them and ponder every night with deep thought and meditation. All of a sudden I fell upon the Yoga Vashistha, and I found it of such absorbing interest that I have come to regard it ever since as the best work on the Vedanta Philosophy. The propositions were so logical, the verse is so beautiful, and the exposition is so thorough and penetrating that the soul loses itself in raptures over it. Such a fine combination of philosophy and poetry is a gift reserved only for Sanskrit poets. Look at the eleventh chapter of the Bhagwat Gita, and remark the manifestation in it of the Divine Spirit as cosmic force, embracing in its sweep both the One and the Manifold. Note, again, the verses in Kalidas on the manifestation of Vishnu, or note in his Kumar Sambhava those grand lines in which the poet compresses the vastness and majesty of thought into the setting of a beautiful lake—like flowing stanza of charming verse. And, indeed, there cannot be any antagonism between poetry and philosophy. Poetry is the expression of beauty, and that alone is beauty which communicates ineffable and perfect bliss; and nothing can bring perfect bliss but truth. "Beauty is truth and truth beauty." And that alone is truth which communicates to the soul the feeling of doubtless and deepest satisfaction above the conflicting suggestions of the senses, the emotions and the reasoning faculty of man. That is peace, that is pure contemplation of truth, that is