aggression with still more disastrous counter-aggression. The weapon worship religious law given by Acharya Medhatithi, became the most effective guidance to the Hindus, like the Arthashastra of Arya Chanakya to the generation of the valiant Chandragupta Maurya. To the whole of Aryavarta, he wanted to teach once again the lesson of expansionism and victorious imperialism. Medhatithi, the new interpreter of Manusmriti, was the sole religious leader and perhaps the last of the writers of Smriti. He tried to erect before the perplexd Hindus of the 9th and 10th centuries, a huge lighthouse tower of the former Aryan imperialism and expansionism of Chanakya, and to regenerate into them, new courage to push ahead determinedly and strike hard at the aggressor. His intention was clearly to animate his society with the vibrant inspiration to repulse instantly the armed religious aggression of the Muslims of those times, in the same magnificent tradition of the Aryan empires of old and with their military strategy, in fighting down the aggressive rakshasas (enemies). He wanted the Hindus to establish not only the old empire of Aryavarta, but to conquer and annex the Muslim states even beyond the limits of Aryavarta and establish Hinduism there, if necessary, even with force. The Aryan slogan ‘Krunvanto Vishvam Aryam’ (We are going to make the whole world Aryan) of the Vedic times, resounds incessantly throughout his critique on Manusmriti. 488. There had been a great confusion wrought in the Hindu Society over a thousand years or so preceding Medhatithi’s age by the anti-national and imbecile social traditions (which we have mentioned so far and will mention hereafter), about the differentiation of caste, religious tolerance and fear of pollution, which appeared as if laid down by the shritis (Vedas), and ruled as per the injunction of the Smritis. The critic Medhatithi was the only one, who on seeing the miserable plight of the Hindus determined to check their downward course and convulse the imbecile and intellectually stagnant Hindu society into its original Aryan form. Naturally, he decided to criticise Manusmriti itself, which was considered to be the basic foundation of all other smritis. He ruthlessly tested the laws of political conduct propounded therein on the anvil of Chanakya’s Arthashastra. In this way, with the original Manusmriti of the Aryans in one hand and the empire- worshipping conquest-loving Kautilya’s Arthashastra in the other, Medhatithi declared irreligious all the codes of conduct, which had been

rendered impotent because of the imbecile and intellectually sterile Hindu Ahimsa. With one stroke of remonstrance like the following: 489. या वेदब्राह्याः यस्मृतमयः याश्च काश्च कुदृष्टयः। सर्वास्तान् विपरीतार्थान्, वेदविद् न समाचरेत्॥ He rendered not only all the silly ‘codes of conduct’, but even the smritis that called them caste-laws absolutely defunct and valueless. 490. Most probably, Medhatithi might have seen and heard about all the religious persecution by the Muslims in Sindh and the Punjab and the failure of the Hindus, for various reasons already discussed, to avenge it or even to counteract it effectively. Naturally, in order to din once again into the ears of the then defeated, fallen and perplexed Aryan nation the echoes of the smritis of the old Aryavarta, which was on its way to glory and which, with the motto • कृण्वन्तो विश्वम् आर्यम on its banner was conquering in all directions, Medhatithi picked up and extolled in his own critique as Manu’s original commandments, only the warlike, arms-adoring and imperialistic religious rites and precepts. All others, he condemned as वेदब्राह्याः स्मृतयः (smritis against the Vedas)! His thundering sentences did not befit the then powerless Hindu kings, nor could those kings utter them with proper dignity and grandeur. Those precepts were really meant for an Emperor like Chandragupta or Emperor Pushyamitra! 491-492. Medhatithi clearly declares that to invade another kingdom— especially an enemy state—can never be an injustice in political science. It is, on the other hand, the duty of a king, he said, to pounce upon the non- Hindu enemy and crush him before he grows powerful enough to invade the former. In statesmanship, the protection of the Aryavarta is the supreme duty of a king. That is why he condemns as suicidal, dilatory and so adverse to the kingly duty, everything that the other imprudent foolhardy critics recommend as proper code of conduct: viz that while attacking a foreign kingdom and especially the Muslim kingdom, the Aryan kings should not strike till the other gives offence of some sort or the other. On the contrary, he says that the neighbouring king is an enemy is in itself his fault; at an opportune moment, he should be pounced upon and crushed. What more, if the neighbouring non-Aryan kingdom is seen to be getting stronger and mightier than our Aryan state, whether it is guilty of any tangible offence or not, we should ourselves form alliance with other friendly or unfriendly

powers and go to war against this non-Aryan state, the moment we are assured of success. 493. Throughout the critical treatise of Medhatithi, one dominant aspiration makes itself felt on almost every page that the smaller states of Shreeman Bhojraj—the Rajput prince—and other Hindu kings should be united into a powerful kingdom and once again a mighty empire like the old —nay, an invincible and victorious Bharatiya Empire—should rise on the Indian soil. From this point of view, while writing about the other kingly duties, he has emphasized one, viz. that even before the Mlenchchas (non- Aryans) attack an Aryan state, the latter should march against the enemy kingdom. Once you are engaged in war with the enemy, you should throw kindness and generosity to the winds and crush the enemy outright. The crafty enemy should be struck down with super-cunning and skilful deception under any pretext whatsoever. In a war, the so-called virtues like honesty, simplicity, consistency in speech and action and politeness, gentility and generosity themselves prove fatal to the nation. Hence, a king should not fall a prey to them—should keep himself aloof from them. 494. Medhatithi has most powerfully expounded this sort of stern political theory (ethics). For, it was absolutely essential for saving the Hindus from complete annihilation at the hands of the Muslims, because of their simplicity. To teach them the arch-diplomacy of Arya Chanakya, was his sole aim. Medhatithi plainly says that the Aryadharma nowhere decrees that the Aryans should confine themselves to the boundaries of Aryavarta. On the contrary, the pith and marrow of the religious code of the Hindus, he says, is that if the mighty Aryan kings invade the non-Aryan kingdoms beyond the Aryavarta and conquer them, and immediately spread their Aryadharma there and finally establish their empire in those lands, then even those former non-Aryan lands should thereafter be considered Aryan lands and incorporated in Aryavarta! 495. At least some Hindu states of those times followed these precepts of Medhatithi and like Chanakya's ideal disciple, Chandragupta, literally crossed the boundaries of Aryavarta and waged successful wars against the Muslim powers. Although to the north, the frontier Hindu states were forced not to cross but to defend their boundaries, yet till nearly one hundred and fifty years after the death of Mahmud of Ghazni, the Southern Hindu states remained independent and powerful. So the Indian Hindu States were able to carry out the victorious political experiments of the

Mauryan era as per the injunctions of Medhatithi And that is why the Kalingas, the Pandyas, the Cheras, Cholas and other Hindu states sent powerful naval expeditions across the Western (often misnamed the Arabian Sea), the Southern and the Eastern Seas, carrying their victorious banner to the non-Aryan kingdoms, right up to the African coast on the one side and the Chinese on the other. The astonishing fact is that while in the north, Mahmud of Ghazni and Mohammed Ghori were ravaging and plundering capital-after-capital and temple-after-temple of the Hindus and trampling down their powerful kingdoms in the South, the colossal temples like the one at Bhuvaneshwar were being erected. Kings like Rajendra Chola marched with their mighty victorious naval forces, through Burma, Pegu, the Andamans and the Nicobars and other archipelagos in the Eastern Sea. They visited the Hindu confederate states in Java, Indo-China and Thailand, conquered the Lakshadiv and Maldiva island states in the Western Sea, and finally conquering Ceylon, hoisted their invincible flag on the Southern Ocean. 496. It is doubtless that on the strength of religious authority of Medhatithi, illumined by the glorious tradition of Chanakya, these victorious Hindu naval forces conquered kingdom-after-kingdom beyond the great seas and annexed them to the Aryan empire. This was accomplished not on the hobby horse to tight conventions and rigid injunctions which came into force a century or two before, but because of the enlightening and guiding commentaries of Medhatithi. ❑

10.

Intermittent Hindu Retaliation Against

Muslim Religious Aggression

497. At the end of an earlier chapter, we had expressed our astonishment as to how the Hindu Society did not perish completely in spite of the various defects of class-differences, ban on reconversion misconceptions about virtues and the like, and how it escaped with the loss of only some millions of Hindus converted. For beyond the frontiers of India, wherever such Muslim religious aggression took place, the natives there were totally deprived of their religions. The northern coast of Africa up to Spain and the Asian lands up to the frontier India, were totally converted to Islam. But in India alone, then attempts were not completely successful. At the time of Muhammad Kasim’s invasion of Sindh in the 8th century and then from the 11th century, i.e. for nearly a thousand years, from the marauding expedition of Mahmud of Ghazni and of Ghori to the complete overthrow of the Moghul empire by the Peshwas in the 18th century, the Muslim invaders violently converted lakhs of Hindus and tried to multiply their numbers. The circumstances in this land—most adverse for the Hindus— also favoured them. Why then did the Muslims fail to destroy the Hindu Society completely?
498. The first reason that can explain this strange occurrence is the political defeat, which the Hindus inflicted on these Muslims. In the initial stages, Bhim and Rana Pratap and other Rajput princes and next, the Hindu kings of Vijayanagar had rendered the Muslim power out of gear and crippled it. Lastly, the Marathas dealt it deadly blows and fluttered their victorious banner under the leadership of the Peshwa right up to Attock. This political defeat of the Muslims at the hands of the Hindus, which is well known to all, made it impossible for the Muslims to bring all the Hindus under their green flag.
499. But the other potent reason for this strange phenomenon is that there arose from time to time, heroic men and women warriors, who staunchly opposed the armed religious aggression of the Muslims with counter aggression following the precepts of Maharshi Deval and Medhatithi. It is this counter-aggression on the religious front by the Hindus, that has really

saved the Hindu society from total extinction. Some stray incidents are cited here to show how the Hindus did it. 500. (1) After the Muslims conquered Sindh, the celebrated Bappa Raval of Mevad attacked not only Sindh, but the Muslim strongholds beyond that land and annexed them to his territory. He even went further, as the Rasos (political biographies) of the Rajput princes tell us. He married a Muslim princess, who was captured at the final Muslim rout and kept her in his harem along with his other queens. His offsprings from this Muslim converted princess were respected in the society as born in the family of the Sun god. In respect of this progeny of the King of Mevad, the Hindus of that time did not always act with foolish religiosity of the Marathas, who refused to accept the son of the valiant Bajirao Peshwa from his Muslim wife, Mastani, and forced the child back into the Muslim society. 501. (2) Raval Chechak of Jaisalmir married the daughter of Sultan Haibatkhan named Somaldevi, and established her honourably in his Yadav race. 502. (3) When Kanwar Jagmal, the eldest son of Rao Mallinath Rathod of Marwad, heroically defeated the Muslim Sultan of Gujarat and annexed it to his own domain, he married publicly the daughter of the Sultan, called Gindoli, who was renowned for her exceptional beauty, and established his offsprings, born of her, amongst the high ranked Jagirdars of Marwad and assimilated them amongst the Rajputs completely. 503. (4) Besides all these, the Hindus here and there seem to have effected bold prudent counter-strokes to the terrible calamity of the mass conversions of Hindus by the Muslim aggressors, and foiled their attempts. For instance, Raimal, the King of Marwad captured 600 Muslim women, and after reconverting them to Hinduism, married them publicly to several noblemen of his court. 504. (5) Kumbharana of Mevad likewise defeated the Muslims, taking all the captured Muslim women to his Kingdom. He reconverted them and married them to his noblemen as per their wishes. 505. (6) The celebrated historian of Rajasthan, Major Tod, has narrated many more instances of this type. 506. (7) The different political histories, called Rasos of the Rajput royal families, also mention many instances of this type of conversion and assimilation of Muslim women into the Hindu society.

507. (8) Raja Jayasthiti of Nepal also avenged Muslim religious aggression in like manner. He too followed Medhatithi’s policy of rushing the wicked enemy. About A.D. 1360, Shamsuddin—the Nawab of Bengal —attacked Nepal and played havoc there, destroying many Hindu and Buddhist temples, converting violently hundreds of Hindu and Buddhist subjects. When this brave Hindu King came to the throne, he made Nepal a hotbed for the Muslims, drove them out completely and avenged the wrongs done to his subjects. Not only did he rebuild the ruined Hindu and Buddhist temples, but he even reconverted to Hinduism all the unfortunate Hindus and Buddhists, who had been the victims of the Muslim aggression.
508. (9) In the historical records of the times, like the Tarikhs, one curiously finds the Muslim writers themselves complaining that at the least opportunity, the Hindu kafirs converted even the Muslim women to Hinduism and married them in the Hindu community. Such events, of which no trace whatever, can be found in our Hindu historical books, are available only in the Muslim historical records.
509. (10) For instance, in Tarikh-i-Sorath, its Muslim writer says: “Even at the troubled times of Mahmud Ghazni’s expeditions, the King of Anhilwad at the first opportunity, carried away several of the Turkish, Moghul and Afghan women who lingered behind and the Hindus married them unhesitatingly.” He also puts it on record that whenever possible, the Hindus carried away Muslim women en masse and converted them to Hinduism! He has also given some interesting information on the purification and reconversion ceremony of Muslim women performed by the Hindus.
510. He says, “while converting the Muslim women as a class, the Hindu priests burned some barley over their heads. Then, they were given some water mixed with cowdung to drink. Then they were considered fit for all mutual dealings, and the Hindus married them as per their tastes and desires. At some places in the ceremonial mass conversion of Muslim women, these Hindus gave them purgatives and vomiting drugs, and thereafter, distributed them among the various Hindu castes and classes, according to their ranks. The fairest women fell to the lot of high-ranking Hindus. Sardars and noblemen married those of decent birth and lineage, while the maids and slaves were wedded to the Hindus of their respective classes. The whole progeny of these women was completely merged into those respective classes of the Hindu society.”

511. (11) When Arundevrai of Ajmer overcame the Muslims and ousted them from his land, he performed a great ceremony to purify the land which was rendered impure by the Muslim contact, and at that holy place, built a big temple and a lake named ‘Anasagar’. All the men and women, who were converted at the time of the Muslim domination, were all reconverted to Hinduism by merely dipping into this Anasagar lake and moreover, it was given out as a religious precept, that whichever Muslim convert bathed in this lake, with due declaration of his intention and according to some procedure, was to be considered purified and could enter Hinduism.
512. (12) Amarsingh Maharaj of Jaisalmir also performed a similar ceremony and built a lake called Amarsagar. In this lake, sanctified by the great ceremony, thousands of Hindus in Sindh, who were formerly converted to Islam, dipped en masse, declaring their intention to enter into Hinduism, and chanted Mantras while they bathed, and the religious authorities recognised their purification and reconversion to Hinduism.
513. (13) A reference has to be made to Shree Vidyaranyaswami, who like Maharshi Deval and Medhatithi, tried to check the Muslim religious aggression by inspiring the Hindus to retaliate, by bringing forth revolutionary proof of religious authority and sometimes enunciating new religious laws for the purpose. Shree Vidyaranyaswami had accepted not only the supreme leadership (authority) of the religious institution of Shankaracharya at Shringeri, but also of the revolutionary institution designed to overthrow the Muslim power and to establish in its place, a Hindu empire in order to protect Hinduism. He produced not only religious authority for the reconversion of the unfortunate Hindus leading a miserable life under Islam, but he himself publicly reconverted the once forcibly converted Harihar and Bukka, and when these two great warriors defeated the Muslims on several occasions, and established in A.D. 1336, the Hindu State of Vijayanagar, he himself crowned the reconverted Harihar as the Hindu Emperor.
514. After the overthrow of the Muslim power in Gomantak, this very Vidyaranya Madhavacharya built at a holy place, a lake named Madhavteerth and effected mass reconversion of the Muslimized Hindus with ceremonial baths in it. He also provided a religious authority for the future reconversion and purification.
515. (14) Shree Ramanujacharya, his disciples Shree Ramanand and Shree Chaitanya Prabhu of Bengal, also purified hundreds of Muslimized Hindus

with an administration of the vows of Vaishnavism. 516. (15) It is well known that the most daring and valiant Shree Shivachhatrapati, who avenged all the wrongs done to the Hindus by establishing a Hindu independent state, himself reconverted Bajaji, Nimbalkar and Netaji Palkar, who had been forced to court Islam. A Counter-Aggression? 517. (16) Towards the end of his career, Aurangzeb opened, with his huge fourfold army, the most determined offensive against the Hindus. Before he fell upon the Marathas, he wanted to crush the Rajputs. But no sooner did he go away to the South, than the Rajputs retaliated with the same vehemence and vigour and made up for the humiliation and numerical losses of the Hindus. The glaring instance of Jodhpur may be cited here. Under the leadership of powerful Maharana Jaswantsingh and the brave Durgadas Rathod, not only the masjids, erected by Aurangzeb on the ruins of Hindu temples, but all other masjids also were razed to the ground and on their site, Hindu temples were built. The Jodhpurian Rajputs reconverted not only the Muslimized Hindus, but as many of the Muslims also as they could on an extensive scale. If the Muslim armies went on throwing beef into the Hindu temples and wells, the Rathod armies cast pork in masjid-after-masjid and paid them in the same coin. Hundreds of Muslim women were converted to Hinduism and married to the Rajputs or were simply kept as concubines, like the Hindu women by the Muslims before them. The whole of the Muslim society in Rajputana was horror- stricken to see this ferocious outburst of Hindu rage. Not merely for the sin of eating and drinking with the Muslims but for having cohabited with and married Muslim women, and even keeping them in their houses, Hindus were no longer socially ostracized. For, at least thirty to forty years, this Hindu retaliatory aggression on the Muslims had spread and glowed, and resounded through town-after-town and village-after-village in the Hindu states in Rajasthan. It is, of course, needless to say that with the decline of the power of the brave Durgadas Rathod, this ferocious appearance of the Hindu society also vanished. Reason? 518. The reason is only this, that the abiding state of the Hindu mind at that time, did not favour religious counter-aggression but social boycott. The innate capacity of the Hindus for Rejuvenation

519. It is interesting to note how side by side with the repeated annihilating aggressions of Mahmud of Ghanzi and Ghori and other Muslims, and side-by-side, again with huge numerical losses suffered by the Hindus because of their morbid misconception of virtues and caste- differences, and the ban on repurification and reconversion, the age-old native missionary spirit and urge of the Hindu nation also burst into action elsewhere, acquiring not only political power but assimilating newer tribes of thousands of people. The story of the conversion of the Ahom tribe in Assam to Hinduism, can be cited here as a sample, noting at the same time, the spread of the Hindu empire in Indo-China and beyond, referred to already towards the end of the last chapter.
520. While hundreds of Hindu warships and merchant-marine were lording over the vast seas and oceans—the Gangasagar (The Bay of Bengal), the Sindhusagar (the Bay of Bombay) and the whole of the Indian Ocean—right from the Southern end of Africa to the very coast of China, it was impossible for any Hindu to have ever thought of the beggarly ban on sea-voyage! This conquest of the seas (by the Hindus), is also referred to earlier. The conversion of the Ahom tribe to Hinduism is described here as an illustration of how vis-a-vis the vast numerical losses suffered in the north because of the diabolic onslaughts of the Mahmud of Ghazni and Ghori, the Hindus went on winning religious victories and assimilating thousands of alien people into the Hindu religion.
521. Beyond Assam, many wild tribes had lived a nomadic life for generations together, subsisting on marauding and plunder. Ahom, a branch of one of these tribes, called Shan, began to press hard since the 8th century A.D. on the Hindu kings of Varman, Salstam and Pal dynasties adjoining Assam. In the end in A.D. 1228, King Sukapha began to rule all these lands. He was the first king to call himself and his subjects Ahom—Ajod—i.e unrivalled! These new administrators of the land boldly and successfully faced even the Moghul might. Sukapha's kingdom was also called Ahom and modern Assam, in the opinion of some scholars, is the corrupt form of Ahom. 521A. The most astonishing fact is that among these various mountain tribes as among the Huns and the Sakas, the Hindu missions and missionaries then existing there, had planted the principles and rules of religious conduct as laid down by Hinduism, so deeply and firmly that as soon as he conquered Assam in A.D. 1554, another Ahom king along with

many of his tribe accepted Hinduism. Gradually, that whole tribe of thousands of people merged itself into the Hindu society. That king changed his original name in the Shan dialect to Jaydhwaj Singh, a name among the Hindu Kshatriyas. All the later Ahom kings too took for themselves Hindu names alone. Ban on crossing attock and sea voyage 522. While the brave tribes, like the above mentioned Ahom, were courting Hinduism even in its evil days, there was no likelihood of any ban on purification or any caste-differences, to stop them from doing so. For, these only made some new addition to the already existing numerous castes in the Hindu nation. Some of their customs and manners were limited to their particular castes, but all other rites and ceremonies were common to all, in strict conformity with the injunctions of the Hindu Smritis. The ban on purification and reconversion was being enforced more-and-more strictly only towards the north up to Punjab, solely because of the ruthless atrocities of the Muslims. The rest of the Indian continent was wholly free from the danger of Muslim domination. The Muslims had not yet made any further headway. Naturally, the ban on purification and reconversion had not so far presented itself to them in any urgency. It should be told here, that the ban on the crossing of the Attock, i.e. the injunction appearing in the later smritis, declaring it a sin to cross the Indus and to go over into the Muslim lands, must have been promulgated by our traditionalist priesthood, with the sole intention of saving Hinduism. For, it was impossible that crossing the Indus meant abandoning Hinduism (the Vedic cult) and being polluted, as it is now amply proved that even after the ravages of Mahmud of Ghazni, the whole of the region beyond the Indus even up to the Mount Pariyatra (Hindukush mountains), was reconquered by the Hindus and the Hindu rule spread up to Khotan. Even up to that time, ‘Krunvanto Vishwam Aryam’ was the motto inscribed on our national flag. ‘Traverse the whole world for spreading Aryadharma’ was the supreme unqualified religious order of the day! 523-524. But it becomes clear from the historical facts mentioned above, that it is only when the Hindu states beyond the Indus were liquidated, thousands of Hindus began to be violently converted to Islam by the devilish Muslims, who subjected the followers of other religions to harrowing persecution. The ban on crossing the Attock must, therefore, have been enforced, owing to the helplessness caused by the lack of any

armed support for the Hindus in those regions. Another proof of this is the provision in the (Smrityaite) smarta order (order-system-laid down by the smritis) for adding or deleting according to the times and circumstances, the religious duties beneficial or harmful to the nation. The verse: “Different were the religious rites and duties of the krit, Dwapar and other epochs (ages) (But) owing to the deterioration of the ages, the duties of men have come to be different” अन्ये कृतयुगे धर्माः त्रेतायां द्वापरे परे॥ अन्ये कलियुगे नृणाम युग ह्सानुरुपतः॥ expresses the idea very succinctly. 525. Naturally, when the Hindu kingdoms beyond the Indus were lost and the Hindus and Persians and others were converted to Islam, under unbearable persecution by the Muslim powers established there, and, as such, when to go beyond the Indus became as horrible as to abandon one’s own religion, it must have become absolutely necessary for the smritis to issue the new order of the darkest hour (adverse times), that it was sinful for any Hindu to cross the Indus, that the land beyond the Indus should be considered a Muslim land. From this time onwards, therefore, the ban on crossing Attock must have been strictly enforced. 526-528. The verse in Bhavishya Puran, which describes the new boundaries of India, and which I myself brought to light for the first time “The Aryan nation is best called Sindhusthan. The land beyond the Indus is made the land of the Muslims by that great soul”. सिंधु स्थानमिति प्राहुः राष्ट्र भार्यस्य चोत्तमम्। म्लेच्छ स्थानम् परं सिंधोः कृतं तेन महात्मना॥

must have been appended to the smritis at this time, i.e. after Mohammed Ghori’s invasion. This time is also mentioned in that verse itself. The then Hindu Maharaja—great King—who fixed this boundary, and who is referred to here by the phrase ‘by that great soul’, must probably be Maharaja Bhoj of Dhara (999 AD - 1054 AD), the greatest among the Hindu rulers of the time. Smritis and the ban on sea voyages 529. Although the Muslim political conquests in the north brought upon the Hindu nation, this miserable calamity of narrowing the northern and north-western boundaries of India, yet it was limited to the north alone. The rest of India, on this side of Punjab, the whole of Sindhausthan was free to assimilate newer tribes beyond Assam, free to be the mistress of the eastern, western and southern seas and extend its rule right up to Indo- China and win new victories. Sinhaldweep (Ceylon) was also a Baby India —a satellite Indian state! For, the island of Ceylon had all along been ruled by royal dynasties of Indian extraction! The same is true of the Lakhadiv and Maldiv and other archipelagos in the vast ocean up to the African coast, which were under the authority of the Hindu kings. It is foolish to think of any order by the Smritis which claimed to follow the Vedic cult, banning sea voyage at that time. The greatest conquerors of all the quarters like the Emperor Rajendra Chola were strict followers of the Vedic cult, and took for themselves the title, ‘Trisamudreshwar’—ruler of the three seas—as that of ‘Samrat’ in the north. Sea Voyage and Fetters 530-533. The verse, ‘अन्ये कृतयुगे धर्माः त्रेतायाम् द्वापरे परे’...cited above, indirectly points to the reason why helpless Hindu law-givers of latter days, labouring under political slavery, were obliged to clamp this ban on the voyage of the three seas in the South. The reason actuated in the north the prevention of crossing the Indus into the lands beyond, was no other than the religious persecution of the Hindus by alien religious fanatics. In order that the insertion into the old original smritis of new precepts and bans, calculated to meet the critical situations arising in future, might be possible, a new concept of the deterioration of the age and the chapter on rules of conduct prescribed in the ··¤çÜß...Øü Âý·¤ÚU‡æ was cleverly adopted. It is needless to say that this concept

of the deterioration of the age and the theory of कलिवर्ज्य things, did actually affect adversely the immutability of the old smritis. But such an indirect change, in the best interests of the society, was unavoidable for the religious law-givers of the times, who sometimes modified or enlarged some old precepts, while they introduced some altogether new ones. The verse, अन्ये कृतयुगे etc., which occurs in most of the smritis mentioned above, bears out this remark very clearly. It is only in the smritis compiled or edited in this Smrityite fashion after the periods of Maharshi Deval and Acharya Medhatithi, that the unequivocal ban on sea voyage, denying every sort of redemption for one undertaking sea voyage, and making illegal the acceptance of such a person into his original religion or caste, seems to have been enforced strictly. That period synchronizes with the preponderance of Christians, more particularly the Portuguese, in our Western Sea, with the Portuguese persecution and proselytization of the thousands of Hindus in Gomantak (Goa), and with the Arab occupation of Java, Sumatra and Indo- China and the wholesale violent conversion of the Hindu-Buddhist population of those lands. This was the period when the sea-faring Hindu- Buddhist states of the greater Indian empire, staunchly supported by the gallant navies of the Cholas and the Pandyas, fell along with the whole of Southern India, devastated before the Muslim might. It was the same period when the Hindu ships stopped visiting those distant states and the Hindus lost all contact with them. It was the most miserable, the most wretched period in the religious and political life of the Hindu nation. Naturally, this must have been the period when the ban on sea-faring was strictly and universally clamped on the Hindus. And it is only in the latest smritis of this period, let it be remembered, that the verses about the ban on the crossing of Attock and that on sea-faring are to be found! 534. It is clear from the above-mentioned state of things that it was only when every Hindu rover, crossing any of the three Indian seas, had to fall a prey to the rapacious Muslim or Christian crocodiles, with no Hindu power overlording the sea any longer, to protect him from that tragic fate, that their foremost leaders had to issue this ban—this order not to cross the seas on any occasion—with the noble intention of protecting the Hindu society. 535. A nation that obliged to suffer all sorts of humiliation heaped on her natives and the adherents of the native religion (one which is obliged to see helplessly foreign Muslim or Christian religions imposed on pain of death

upon her people, and which sadly lacks the armed might to ward off this disastrous situation), has no other go than to forbid her people, of course, for self-preservation alone, from going to the enemy lands. Self-imposition of the ban on crossing attock or the seas 536. The greatest mistake made was that when these various bans were interpolated in the older smritis, as the best means of serving the needs of the particular hour, the spurious verses dealing with these bans were also given the same sanctity, the same authenticity and the same inviolability by stamping them with the old authoritative seal of एष धर्मः सनातनः ‘This is the old tradition’, as was given to the genuinely old verses. That is why even after the particular adverse times, for which these bans on crossing Attock or the sea were originally designed, had passed off and more favourable times prevailed, inasmuch as when the Hindu military might under the Peshwas and Ranjit Singh was powerful enough not only to cross Afghanistan but even attack Persia, this anti-national blind faith in those bans, however, did not vanish. It was still boulking the credulous Hindu Society with the fear of committing a sin in crossing Attock. That means even when the once beneficial religious tradition had grown harmful to the nation, the Hindu Society was not prepared to give it up immediately for fear of the religious injunction. Even when to break that tradition would have definitely proved greatly advantageous to the nation and holy from the religious point of view, the blind faith in the old tradition that to break the old custom was to commit a sin was still maintained. It is, therefore, the sea, एष धर्मः सनातनः that the modern writers of smritis affixed to these later interpolations, which acted as a bugbear, that played the greatest mischief. 537. Take for instance, the ban on seafaring! Had these writers of smritis of later times specifically mentioned that in old ‘Krit yug’, our Arya nation was mighty enough to cross the (seven) seas and rule over other islands and archipelagos, that even up to the time of Rajendra Chola, we were the lords of the three seas (त्रिसमुद्राधीश) and that, as such, crossing the seas was essential for the spread of our religion and empire and was holy, but as the naval power and the lordship of the seas had now been unfortunately lost, crossing the seas and going into the enemy land in the helpless humble way, was highly injurious to our nation, and so sinful, and that it was, therefore, banned till we regained that lordship of the seas. Had they but said so in so

many words! युग हासानुरूपतः should really be construed as शक्तिहासानुरूपतः ‘because of the loss of might.’ The bugbear of एषधर्मः सनातनः should be truly held up only to that extent. Had (once again we repeat) the writers of Smritis of that time announced this clearly, the tremendously harmful consequences of these bans on crossing Attock and the seas, which the nation had to suffer, could have been avoided to a large extent. 538. But because the new precepts about the various bans on crossing Attock and the seas and others, which were really introduced in the chapter on कलिवर्ज्य things by the new religious lawgivers of later days, were published under the name of the old writers of smritis, they were to remain in force till the end of the कलियुग (Kaliyug), i.e. permanently. Although, later on, breaking these bans itself would have proved advantageous to the Hindus, and although the Hindus had become strong enough to break them, it was impossible that the credulous Hindu Society would ever have been prepared to break them till the doomsday प्रलयकाल (the end of कलियुग), because of the specific Smriti order ‘these five should be abandoned in Kaliyuga’ (क्लौपंच विवर्जयेत् ) Again, when did the (कलियुग) Kaliyug begin? How long was it to last? And when was it to end? And after its end, when was the Age of Truth (सत्ययुग) to commence once again? The different opinions held on these points by many of our religious lawgivers made the confusion worse confounded. The Christian Religious offensive against the Hindus! 539. In paragraph 399 of this book, is mentioned the antiquity of the first Hindu contacts with the Christians. According to the Christian mythology, when in the first century A.D. the Christian religion began to be preached in Syria, the very Jews who had crucified Jesus of Nazareth began to persecute these handful of Christians. At that very time, some of the Christians, who knew the way to India, fled in groups to seek shelter with the Hindu King of Malabar Zamorin (the corrupt form of Samudriya). As a matter of fact, that Hindu King ought not to have unconditionally allowed these alien people to

land on his sea-coast. But being afflicted by the disease of the morbidly erroneous conception of virtues, that Hindu king offered shelter to those Syrian Christians, and allocated a separate tract for their habitation. He even went to the length of offering a copper-plate (ताम्रपट) inscription recognizing their equality of right as a separate caste in the gram-panchayat (town-council). But, later on, when these Syrian-Christians came to know that even if the Hindus were forced merely to eat or drink with them, they would be polluted and could become Christians, these ancient Syrian Christians made an inauspicious start of the spread of Christianity in India, whereas during the first Christian century (1st Century A.D.), not a trace of Christianity could be found in England itself, in India, Hindus had already been begun to be forcibly baptized and made Christians! (It is worthwhile for every Hindu to read the history of the spread of Christianity in those days. Moreover, it seems that the customs and codes of conduct that were likely to facilitate the enemy in the work of proselytization, were firmly rooted in us as the basic religious conduct even as far back as the first century A.D. But we will leave this topic alone for want of space at our disposal, and because it has little bearing upon the subject in hand. 540. However, we should like to refer to one pregnant instance here. On seeing that a number of Hindu people in a town used to bathe in a holy lake, some of those Syrian-Christian missionaries thought that even here, they could try the device of polluting and Christianizing the Hindus, who considered themselves polluted by merely eating food or drinking water with the Christians. With this intention, these Syrian Christian missionaries stealthily went to big lakes where Hindu people used to go in large numbers for a bath and for carrying drinking water home. They bathed there along with all and drank its water. Then, after some days, these very missionaries themselves declared loudly in their congregations, “O you Hindus! We are Christians, the followers of Jesus! We are not Hindus! We have been bathing in your lakes along with you. After worshipping our Christian god, we drink the holy water of the Christian religion and have been giving you the same water all these days and you drank it devoutly. As per your Hindu religion, whichever Hindu drinks the Christian water becomes a Christian for life. This is your religious injunction, so you all have become Christians. That your other brethren may not be deceived, we pious people are publishing this truth!’ This news spread among the Christians and the Hindus of several villages in no time. There was a great havoc everywhere!

All those Hindus became impure and so they began to be boycotted. In the usual way, all those villages and towns in course of time, were socially ostracized and became Christian villages and towns! 541. Now we shall cite just for fun—but fun that kills—another incident, showing how all the human races at that time were fanatics in the extreme. 541A. The early Syrian Christian migrants to India were also divided into different sects. They vied with one another as to which of them disseminated the Christian doctrine more truly in foreign countries. So the sects other than the one that had Christianized Hindu villages, protested against the latter and out of malice, informed the superior religious authorities in Europe that sect had converted the simple and foolish Hindu to Christianity by abominable lies and deception, and collected contributions, but had never preached any Christian doctrines, as such. Therefore, they pleaded, that the number of the converts should not be taken into account, and that they should be stopped from damaging the prestige of the Christian propagandists. Because of the incessant protests of these other Christian sects, those Hindu converts to Christianity had for a long time no legal status as Christians, although they thought themselves to be such, and their subscriptions to the church were not accepted, nor were they allowed entrance into the church. In the end, the knotty problem seemed to have been solved by way of sumptuous subscriptions. For, after some days, a directive was received from Europe that all the Hindu converts were now to be called Christians and subscriptions from all of them were necessarily to be collected. Later on, all the Christian missionaries, to whatever sect they belonged, declared it to be their religious duty to convert the Hindus not only by hook or by crook or by sly means, but even by force and armed force. Naturally, the elementary ways of conversion like making the Hindus eat or drink with the Christians, were beyond all range of dispute and doubt. 542. Thereafter, the Syrian and other Christians fell out in their own country, and there were fierce battles fought amongst the various Christian sects. Therefore, for two or three centuries, thereafter, the work of the Christian missionaries in India had practically stopped. But one thing must be remembered in this context, that because there was no attempt whatsoever on the part of the Hindus to reconvert the Christianized Hindus (Indian Christians), the latter kept on calling themselves Christians and ceased to have any relation whatsoever with the Hindus.

543. In this brief account, one great proselytizing movement in the fifteenth century deserves some slight reference. That is the rigorous proselytizing movement carried on by the Portuguese missionaries after the passing of Gomantak into the Portuguese hands, and the opening of the centres of Christian propaganda on the Malabar coast. Their first energetic and determined archbishop to convert the Hindus by means of any horrible atrocities was Saint Xavier, who came to the land of Gomantak by about A.D. 1540. After moving heaven and earth for the spread of Christianity (of course in his horrible way), he wrote several letters to the Emperor of Portugal about the obstacles in his way of proselytization.
544. In one of his letters to the Portuguese King, he complains that the Portuguese officers in India, in spite of the fact that they were Christians themselves, irreverently set at naught, his orders in respect of the propagation of their faith. They were entirely given to lustful pleasures and a life of luxury, and were always on the lookout for every means to grow rich. Money was their God. To the service of the true God, to which the missionaries like himself had dedicated their lives, those officers, never did lend any helping hand. “The Second necessity for the Christians”, he wrote in his letter addressed from Amboina (Moluccas) to D. Joao III, King of Portugal on May 16, 1545, “is that your Majesty establish the Holy Inquisition, because there are many who live according to the Jewish law and according to the Mohamedan sect, without any fear of God or shame of the world. And since there are many, who are spread all over the fortress, there is the need of the Holy Inquisition and of many preachers.” In one of his letters to the Society at Rome, he wrote, “If it were not for the opposition of the Brahmins, we should have them all embracing the religion of Jesus Christ.” These Brahmins were alleged to hinder the progress of the Christian proselytizing movement. While the Christian missionaries went on converting thousands of Hindus to Christianity, these ‘wily’ Brahmins were found to be secretly taking them all to the banks of the Mandvi river and bluffed them into bathing in the river; after reciting some verses, in order to wash off all sins of being converted to Christianity, they were declared to be original Hindus. Thus, with these and various other blatant lies, these Brahmins were alleged to be purifying a number of Hindu converts to Christianity. In spite of all attempts to intimidate and terrorise these Brahmins, they were said to be carrying on their activities nonchalantly. Xavier complains that the Portuguese officers in India did not

inflict on these Brahmins such severe punishments, as he would have liked them to do. 545. Tired of these incessant complaints of the Christian missionaries like St. Xavier, the Portuguese Emperor issued stern orders to his Governors and other officers, that they should not neglect help in any way in the sacred (?) cause of the spread of Christianity, otherwise their whole properly would be confiscated. Even then not satisfied, St. Xavier went on complaining against the Brahmins. He, nevertheless, gloated at the tremendous success his proselytizing efforts had achieved. At the very sight of a Christian missionary, Hindu villages were taken alright and people there were said to be running away helfer skelter, for most severe were the measures taken against those of the Hindus, who did not court Christianity. Let alone the common Hindu villagers, even the high priests of big Hindu temples, the heads of Hindu monasteries and the rich in the cities, were all put into prisons and were subjected to so much physical torture, that the priestly class at many places is said to have made good their escape to places outside Goa, carrying their sacred idols with them. “Whenever I hear of any act of idolatrous worship”, wrote St. Francis Xavier to the Society at Rome in 1543 A.D. “I go to the place with a large band of these children, who very soon load the devil with a greater amount of insult and abuse, than he has lately received of honour and worship from his parents, relations and acquaintances. The children run at the idols, upset them, dash them down, break them to pieces, spit on them, trample on them, kick them about and, in short, heap on them every possible outrage.” He further wrote to the same society at Rome from Cochin on the 27th Jan, 1545, “When all are baptized, 1 order all the temples of their false gods to be destroyed and all the idols to be broken into pieces. “The cruelties’, writes a Goan Historian, J.C. Barreto Miranda, which in the name of religion of peace and love this tribunal (of Inquisition) practised in Europe, were carried to even greater excesses in India.... Every word of their’s (of the Inquisitors) was a sentence of death, and at their slightest nod, was moved to terror the vast population spread over the Asiatic regions, whose lives fluctuated in their hands and who, on the most frivolous pretexts, could have been clapped for all time in the deepest dungeons or strangled or offered as food for the flames of the pyre.” The harrowing atrocities of St. Xavier and his successors on the Hindus of his and later dates, cannot be described here for want of space.