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

stopped forever, they were never able to establish a unitary and powerful rule of all the Sakas anywhere in India, Whatever stray kingdoms they had founded so far in India were unable to face successfully the two-pronged drive of the Indian retaliation. The Victorious Malavas 219. The above-mentioned Youdheyas and the Malavas attacked the Sakas, who had spread round about Ujjayini. An allusion has been found to have been made to the fact that the Malavas had invested the fort of ‘Uttambhadra’ round about the year 57 B.C. The then celebrated King of Sakas, named Nahapan, had forced the Malavas to lift the siege. But soon after, the Malava forces encircled Nahapan with his whole army from all quarters. Naturally, a decisive battle was joined, wherein the Malava republican army showed the limit of its valour, but not being content with the destruction of the Saka forces, which were considered to be second-rate, they killed in the war, their very King Nahapan. Malava Samvat 220. Because of this crushing defeat at the hands of the Malavas, the Saka military might’s morale was so much shaken that they seemed to have taken a fright of their lives to face pitched battles with the Indian armies. This battle is conspicuous in another respect too, inasmuch as the Malavas started a new era of their own in the year of this victory, to commemorate their signal success over the Sakas, which had resounded throughout the length and breadth of India. They named this era as ‘Krut’, but on the coins that they struck on this occasion, are inscribed in the Brahmi script, legends such as ‘Malavajayah’, ‘Malavanam Jayah’, ‘Malava Ganasya’ and so on. This is the Same Vikram Samvat of ours 221. In our country, good many emperors started new eras in their own names. It was a traditional ambition, and a kind of right of such victorious kings and emperors to style themselves as ‘Shakakartas’ (the starters of new eras). The latest instance that can be cited is that of Shri Shivaji Maharaj. He too commenced his own era, the ‘Shiva-Saka’. Most of these various eras ended with the termination of these royal dynasties. However, of the two of three eras, which have attained a national character and which have been adopted by the Hindu world, although region-wise, and by which not only our mundane affairs but our religious rites also are dated for more or less two thousand years, the Malava Samvat should be