A Word in Confidence

It is with great pleasure and satisfaction that I present to the readers this translation of the original book in Marathi. I consider it a piece of good luck to have had an opportunity of translating such an important book by the late Swantantrya-Veer V.D. Savarkar, which cropped up in my casual talk with Shree Balarao Savarkar, the devoted private secretary of that Prince of Patriots. After it was translated, every chapter went to the illustrious author who honoured me by going through it very carefully and when I had the good fortune to meet him personally on the completion of the undertaking, he obliged me by saying that he was satisfied with the translation and appreciated the hard labour it entailed. Would that Swa. Veer Savarkar had been alive today to see this English translation of his book in print! Veer Savarkar’s book “भारतीय इतिहासातील सहा सोनेरी पाने” is a commentary, not a history in its academic sense—on the significant events and periods in our national life, taking a broad survey of the growth and survival of our Hindu race. In a way, this attempt of Savarkar has been singular, barring a few honourable exceptions. The general trend of the histories, written, read and taught in schools and colleges, has been one of eulogizing the foreigners and deprecating the Hindu race, relying wholly on the biased records of the foreign historians and travellers. Attempts are, happily, being made to reconstruct and restate the history of India from the national point of view, using to the utmost, all available native records of coins and inscriptions and covert allusions in the otherwise non-historical works, slender though they may be, but they are still sporadic and isolated, relating to this or that particular phase of Indian History. This volume presents ‘Six Glorious Epochs of Indian History’ since the beginning of our recorded history, i.e. from the days of Chandragupta Maurya to the end of the British dominance over India. Hence, like its predecessor, ‘The War of Indian Independence of 1857’, which galvanized the public opinion and changed the world outlook on the phase of our national life, this book too is very likely to start re-orientation of our historical concepts and the accepted historical theories. A need for an