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

attendant to burn her dead body and not to let the Muslim infidels touch it. Even after her death, Raja Veer Narayan continued to fight with the Muslims, but his resistance was put down by the vastly superior Muslim forces and in A.D. 1562, his small state of Gondwana was annexed to the Moghal empire. 946. Akbar then began to entice the softer ones of the Rajput rulers, who had been disgusted with incessant warfare with the Muslims over generations, together with very alluring promises of honourable and friendly treatment to the Hindus. But on seeing that, even when these docile Rajput rulers were prone to accept Akbar’s terms, they often hesitated and fought shy of doing so in the face of the high sense of honour and pride in their religious and racial purity, which made the belligerent Rana of Chitod staunchly turn down all overtures of peace from the Moghal Emperor. Akbar decided to subdue the fort of Chitod first and accordingly, laid siege to it in A.D. 1567. The Rana of Chitod at that time was Uday Singh, who had not even a small percentage of the dauntless valour of his celebrated father, Rana Sang, who had earlier fought with Babar. But the one courtesan who was at that time wielding real power in Chitod inspired the Rajputs to extraordinary valour. Even when Uday Singh fled away to the forest, the great feudatory lords of Chitod like Jaymalla, Patta and others continued to fight with the Moghals. Later, when Jaymalla and Patta were killed on the battlefield and defeat was absolutely certain, the Rajput Hindus of Chitod, instead of becoming dispirited and disheartened, were touched to the quick and infuriated to the extreme. All the soldiers desperately entered the battlefield and with the war-cry ‘Har, Har Mahadev’ heaped up mounds of the massacred Muslim warriors. But ultimately, when the Rajputs themselves were almost killed in the battle, all the Rajput ladies of Chitod set ablaze the big fire, which was kept ready for the purpose and leapt therein from the ramparts of the fort, according to their age-long glorious tradition, with small children at their breasts and the acclamations in praise of their religion on their lips. These brave ladies reduced themselves to ashes but did not allow the hateful Muslim-touch to defile their pure bodies! This was the third great self-immolation by the ladies of Chitod. 947. It was the same heartless Akbar who caused such a great havoc amongst the Hindus, but whom the spineless Hindu historians of today call the most liberal of monarchs; the one, they say, who yearned to bring about amity between, and unity of, the Hindus and the Muslims; the one, in their opinion, who treated the Hindus far more honourably than any Muslim