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

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