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

other religionists, the Buddhists also could observe their own rituals according to their own beliefs and likings. Besides, they could openly preach by sweet persuasion and discussion. 205. Subsequent to the invasions of Alexander and Seleucos, when the Greeks came raiding for the second time under Demetreos and Menander, and when advancing as far as Ayodhya, they were about to dethrone the reigning king of Magadha and endanger the independence of the Indian empire, the Indian Buddhists played a brazen-faced treacherous role, as is seen from the fact that these Buddhists swore their loyalty to the Greek Emperor, Menander, whom they called Milind. When the latter adopted the Buddhist cult, they accepted him as the King of the region conquered by him. The Buddhist scholars and 'bhikksus' proudly struted in the Indian courts of those Greeks, as if they were moving in some national court. In order to put down as sternly as possible these highly objectionable treacherous acts of these Indian Buddhists, the plots hatched to undermine the national independence, and the open instigation to do anti-national acts, which went on incessantly through various Buddhist monasteries and viharas, Pushyamitra and his generals were forced, by the exigency of time when the war was actually going on, to hang Indian Buddhists, who were guilty of seditious acts and to pull down the monasteries, that had become the centres of sedition. It was a just punishment for high treason and for joining hands with the enemy, in order that Indian independence and empire might be protected. It was no religious persecution. As the supreme authority in the imperial administrative structure of India, it was Pushyamitra’s duty—a religious and kindly duty, according national legal code—to chastise perfidy, whether it was on part of the Buddhists or on that of the Vedic Hindus! Ashoka and Pushyamitra 206. In traditional historical writings, mainly based on Buddhist myths, Ashoka has been extolled as tolerant of different religious sects, while Pushyamitra wholly conniving at his efforts to establish religious freedom, is generally imputed with intolerence and persecution of the Budhists. This false notion has to be corrected. If any body is at all guilty of religious intolerance, it was Ashoka himself. For not only with verbal propaganda but with the abuse of his regal authority, he declared illegal all the fundamental religious rituals, such as sacrifice and hunting by the Vedic Hindus, who formed the majority of his subjects. But Pushyamitra did not issue any royal