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

extremely difficult to do so. Being defeated in one or two battles, the Satavahanas themselves had to withdraw their forces from the north of the Narmada river to the south, in order to build up a strong defence for their own territory against Kanishka’s conquests. By that time, Kanishka had conquered all the Saka states of Malava, Gujarath, Sourashtra and Sindh. Naturally, the Sakas in those regions renounced their allegiance to the Andhras and paid the obeisance to their new lord, Emperor Kanishka. Over and above, Kanishka’s army crossed the Narmada in order to march upon the Andhras themselves and subdued a corner of Aparantak (north Konkan). But mindful of the concentrated armed might of the Andhras, Kanishka dared not attack them. So, he withheld his southern conquests forthwith. Thereafter, he marched with a huge army to oppose the Chinese general who had invaded his north-Himalayan territories. After a series of battles, he vanquished even the Chinese general and annexed the Chinese provinces of Kashgar (Tashkand), Chaskand, and Khotan to his empire. The test of a Nation’s Prowess and its right to live 237. The propriety of recounting this whole incident here is to show clearly that this sudden eruption of the Saka-Kushans throughout Asia did not convulse India alone; it discomfited even the then strongly-built and well-organised empire like China too for a time on the battlefield. But just as it is torn-foolery, born out of jealousy, to say that the Chinese nation had been weak throughout all these years and had never been better fitted for anything else than to be rotting in slavery simply because they suffered temporary defeats against the Saka-Kushans or at some such other times, it is equally foolish and jealously blind to say, as some of our enemies do, that the Indian national life was a series of defeats. It only shows that they cannot read history properly. 238. It is not the number of foreign aggressions over a nation that is the last criterion of deciding its vitality or virulity or the absence of both, but the query, whether that nation was destroyed as a result of those aggressions, or whether in the final phase of that national struggle, that nation was able to overcome those foreign aggressions, that determines a nation’s prowess, its vitality and its right to live. 239. Let us see which of the three, the Sakas, the Kushans or the Indians, passed this test successfully, and who passed out of existence. Kanishka Embraces Buddhism?