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

of Magadha. He was, moreover, endowed with valour and other qualities of head and heart. As such, the arch-diplomat Chanakya shrewdly guessed that even these votaries of tradition were far less likely to oppose Chandragupta’s election to the throne of Magadha. He, therefore, determined to champion the claim of Chandragupta to the emperorship of Magadha—why even to that of the whole of India. 112. While the grand plan of an India-wide empire of Chanakya-and- Chandragupta was thus being set afoot, the unfortunate event of a foreign invasion was reported towards Persia. Alexander had already destroyed the empire of Persia and had invaded India. Although as has been related in the foregoing pages, he was staunchly opposed by the Bharatiya valour and forced to retreat home, it was plain that Alexander’s well organised imperial military might was not totally annulled. 113. Even out of this evil, some good did emerge. The republican subjects of the frontier regions, with their faith in democratic principles shaken rudely by the heavy knock of a foreign invasion and the bloody wars that followed, began to agree with Chanakya and other patriotic prophets that national independence was in peril, unless a countrywide Indian empire was established on the lines of the vast, highly centralized well-organized and unitary form of empire of the enemy. 114. The first happy sign of this revolutionary spirit was seen in the general uprising throughout the smaller states and republics, conquered by Alexander and annexed to his empire and in the fact that hardly within six months or a year of Alexander’s death, these Indian territories shook off the foreign rule and became independent. Justin, an ancient renowned writer, credits the leadership of Chandragupta with the authorship of this wonderful and noble collective uprising. “India after the death of Alexander had shaken, as it were, the yoke of servitude from its neck and put his governors to death. The author of this liberation was Sandrocottus.” The ‘Sandrocottus’ of this quotation is Chandragupta. The Greeks pronounced the name of Chandragupta in this very way. The only way to repel re-invasion? 115. Although the general rising in these frontier provinces was successful under the guidance of Chandragupta, Chanakya and others, the followers of Chanakya began to warn all princes and political leaders, that it had not as yet made Indian independence completely safe from the future Greek onslaught. They went on preaching everywhere that Alexander himself had