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

land on his sea-coast. But being afflicted by the disease of the morbidly erroneous conception of virtues, that Hindu king offered shelter to those Syrian Christians, and allocated a separate tract for their habitation. He even went to the length of offering a copper-plate (ताम्रपट) inscription recognizing their equality of right as a separate caste in the gram-panchayat (town-council). But, later on, when these Syrian-Christians came to know that even if the Hindus were forced merely to eat or drink with them, they would be polluted and could become Christians, these ancient Syrian Christians made an inauspicious start of the spread of Christianity in India, whereas during the first Christian century (1st Century A.D.), not a trace of Christianity could be found in England itself, in India, Hindus had already been begun to be forcibly baptized and made Christians! (It is worthwhile for every Hindu to read the history of the spread of Christianity in those days. Moreover, it seems that the customs and codes of conduct that were likely to facilitate the enemy in the work of proselytization, were firmly rooted in us as the basic religious conduct even as far back as the first century A.D. But we will leave this topic alone for want of space at our disposal, and because it has little bearing upon the subject in hand. 540. However, we should like to refer to one pregnant instance here. On seeing that a number of Hindu people in a town used to bathe in a holy lake, some of those Syrian-Christian missionaries thought that even here, they could try the device of polluting and Christianizing the Hindus, who considered themselves polluted by merely eating food or drinking water with the Christians. With this intention, these Syrian Christian missionaries stealthily went to big lakes where Hindu people used to go in large numbers for a bath and for carrying drinking water home. They bathed there along with all and drank its water. Then, after some days, these very missionaries themselves declared loudly in their congregations, “O you Hindus! We are Christians, the followers of Jesus! We are not Hindus! We have been bathing in your lakes along with you. After worshipping our Christian god, we drink the holy water of the Christian religion and have been giving you the same water all these days and you drank it devoutly. As per your Hindu religion, whichever Hindu drinks the Christian water becomes a Christian for life. This is your religious injunction, so you all have become Christians. That your other brethren may not be deceived, we pious people are publishing this truth!’ This news spread among the Christians and the Hindus of several villages in no time. There was a great havoc everywhere!