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

Great’! Curiously enough, not even a stray reference has yet been discovered in Vedic or Jain or Buddhist ancient literature. 83. Writes Vincent Smith in his famous Early History of India: “All these proceedings prove conclusively that Alexander intended the permanent annexation of those (Indian) provinces to his empire.... But within three years of his departure from India (from 325 BC to 322 BC), his officers in India were ousted, his garrisons destroyed and all traces of his rule had disappeared. The colonies he founded in India, unlike those established elsewhere in Asiatic provinces, took no root. His campaign, though carefully designed to secure a permanent conquest, was in actual effect not more than a brilliantly successful raid on a gigantic scale, which left upon India no mark save the horrid scars of a bloody war. India remained unchanged. She continued her life of splendid isolation and soon forgot the passing of the Macedonian storm. No Indian author—Hindu, Buddhist or Jain—makes even the faintest allusion to Alexander or his deed.” (p. 117) 84. Who were the most prominent leaders of this political conspiracy, which wiped out, within a period of six months or a year, the whole of the foreign political dominance caused by Alexander’s aggression right from the Panchanad to Sindh? Histroy, as yet, is ignorant of their names! Still two of them, at least, have become immortal. They are the same two men whom I have mentioned while describing Alexander’s advance up to Taxila. The first was a brilliant and smart youth, who had just completed his studies at the University of Taxila, Chandragupta. And the other was Acharya Chanakya, who had been a teacher at that University and who, later on, gave a practical lesson in political craft and political revolutions to the young Chandragupta! As they were to lead the whole of Bharat, hereafter, it is fit and proper that they should be introduced here. The Story of Chandragupta’s Birth 85. Like all other great men of the ancient world, Chandragupta and Chanakya have their life stories clouded with legends, anecdotes and imaginary accounts. Those who are interested in them for the sake of intellectual entertainment may profitably read Radhakumud Mukherjee’s ‘Chandragupta Maurya and His Times’. We shall give here only so much of their lives as appear to us to have historical sanction. 86. Some small bands of the Shakyas, amongst whom was born the great Lord Gautam Buddha, had at one time to shift to far-off regions, because of some disastrous calamity that had befallen them. They called themselves