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

are one, feel as one and mean to make a common stand, long before they will come to realise this all. Godsend Books and How should man read them? One day, while I sat in the night reading History and comparative sociology, I could not help being overwhelmed by the thought that of all superstitions, which outliving their utility, continued to block human progress, the superstition that attributed Divine origin to a set of books and consequently held every word in them as infallible, as God’s truth, was most responsible for perpetuating senseless animosities and ignorance, which hampered rational advance of mankind not only in science and social solidarity but even in religion itself and ranged man against man and creed against creed with deathless enmity and schism. Verily there have been in human history, more men victimised to death and disaster in the name of God and the Gospels than in the name of the Devil and the Dollar. Nevertheless, it cannot be gainsaid that the greatest boon that mankind could have ever received at the hands of its creator would be a book emanating directly from him setting forth in unmistakable accents His will and command, which he meant us to follow, either for man’s good or God’s glory or for both. In that case, instead of groping from error to error in the dim and fickle light of our unaided human reason, we could have treaded on this fair earth under the Divine Guidance with surest steps and in full confidence that it led us to bliss here and hereafter. We know for certain that this generous hope had actually prompted many a prophet in his search after truth and anxiety to receive a revelation directly from the supreme source of wisdom. Had all the prophets succeeded in receiving their commands from the Creator of man in words and substance uniform, unequivocal and uncircumscribed by time and place or if so mentioning clearly the limitations that defined and determined them, our difficulties and controversies with regard to the authenticity of the revelation would have been very much simplified, if not altogether eliminated. But as it is, revelation differs from revelation in the God-sent books as much as in any man-written books and it is due to the explosion of these mines of discrepancies and contradictions which the God-sent books carry within themselves, that the citadel of orthodoxy is often shattered and the forces of doubt and disbelief rush through the breach to complete its ruin. While I was thus overwhelmed by forces of scepticism and sat sorely afflicted in heart, I felt a strange lassitude creeping over me and sealing my