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

flesh they had eaten. This will clearly show that this long-drawn mythological war of our ancestors with the Rakshasas was fought not only on the political but also on the religious front. And at that time, those gods and god-like emperors, too, considered it the holiest religious duty to show super-savage cruelty to beat down the cruelty of the Rakshasas, to be arch- devils against the devils! (For a fuller discussion of the point, please refer to paragraphs 460 to 461 of this book). It is enough to mention here that the incarnation of Nursinh, who appeared in the most terrifying form in order to protect the great devotee Prahlad and who tore to pieces his religious enemy, the wicked Hiranya Kashipu with his leonine talons was— A God-Head of our Nation was our leader! The story of Kacha also shows that in the war, our gods followed the policy— 642. व्रजन्ति ते मूढधियः पराभवम्। भवन्ति मायाविषु ये न मायिनः॥ To fight the crafty enemy with super-craft, to destroy barbarism with hyper-barbarity, as the only effective means of annihilating the foe, was the praiseworthy principle of religious warfare of our ancestors till, at least, the close of the Puranic era. 643. However, when gods fought against other gods, or when there were internecine wars like that of the Kouravas and the Pandavas, the war strategy differed completely. No single charioteer was to be attacked by many charioteers; the submissive or surrendering warrior was to be given his life. Such considerations for justice and injustice were to be actually shown on the battlefield. This ethics of war was preached because it was honoured by both the contending parties. 644. But, as we have already pointed out in paragraph 315, the invasions of varying magnitudes of the Persians, the Ionians, the Greeks, the Sakas and the Kushanas and the Huns, which began at the close of the Puranic period and continued during the early part of our historic past, were all made mainly for political ascendancy and not for any religious enmity. Their own religions were more or less like the offshoots of Hinduism itself. Later on, after their defeat by our Hindu ancestors, the millions of these foreign invaders, who chose to settle here, merged into the Hindu society completely. So during this early historical period, in the absence of any religious aggression by these foreigners on our religion, our ancestors

fought pure and simple political wars with them with effective strategical counter-moves and vanquished them completely. As these wars were purely political in nature, the question of religiosity or irreligiosity, of extreme kindness, truth, violence or non-violence or other fine distinctions of principles never arose! Naturally, the tendency to retaliate in the same fashion even on the religious front—to face religious aggression with counter religious offensives—to meet cruelty with supra-cruel blows, craft with super-craft, violence with extreme violence and to consider this war policy to be a highly religious duty of a brave warrior—lay dormant in our national mind, because there was no occasion for them to use such war tactics on the religious front long after the religious wars with the Rakshasas. 645. Moreover, during this intervening period, the different religious sects that were really the offshoots of the Vedic religion, and had a strong propensity to Sanyas (renunciation or asceticism) and extreme non-violence like the Ajivakas, the Jains, the Buddhists and others, preached to the society that true religion meant extreme non-vidence, kindness, love and truth and nothing else. Among the rest of the Vedic population, class distinctions and their development into caste differences and the religious traditions about food-exchange, touchables and untouchables, which cut to pieces the composite life of the society, were growing stronger and these very, really anti-social traditions came to be considered as true religion. Later on, flesh-eating was prohibited even in the sacrificial rites. The fact that the extreme forms and manifestations of truth most often prove to be the harmful vices was lost sight of by the religious ideology of the time, while the excessive inopportune and suicidal use of virtues, which ruined the nation, was itself considered the highest form of religious conduct. Generally speaking, truthful conduct is a virtue. To satisfy a promised gift or word is also a virtue! But when in the heat of extolling virtues to the skies, the Puranas (mythological stories) told the story of Harishchandra, who made good his promise given to Vishwamitra in his dream by presenting him with his kingdom and such other childish stories, they definitely changed the national war-policy into an imbecile, weak and suicidal one. No words can adequately condemn this influence of the Puranas. More respectable than this truthful conduct was considered the practice of non-violence as the highest form of virtue, not only by the Jains and the Buddhists but in some of the Vaishnav texts also, which later on

hastened our terrible downfall as determinedly and as enormously as even our enemies, the Muslims, could not perhaps accomplish. Manliness and valour came to be condemned as the vilest of vices. The unmanly, the imbecile, the valour-lacking coward, not only lacking the ability but even the desire to avenge the national insult and injustice, came to be highly respected in religious circles as the greatest and most magnanimous saint, ripe for an honourable place in heaven. 646. This point has already been adequately discussed with sufficient proofs and illustration in chapter VIII under the caption ‘Perverted Sense of Virtues’ and in other chapters also; and it will be touched again, while we shall be narrating the events on the political front. Here, it has to be remembered that as all the invasions on India after the Puranic times had been political and not religious (at least not of such huge dimensions as those of the Rakshasas so as to shake the very foundation of our religion), we had completely forgotten the old war-strategy to meet such terrible religious aggression. Our very definitions of virtues and religion and their practice had undergone a complete change. The war-strategy of Nursinh of the ancient times, which sought a tooth for a tooth and an eye for an eye had now become vegetarian, submissive, tolerant and shameless! 647. Naturally, when Islam invaded Hinduism with far more ferocity and bitterness and with more dangerous weapons than the Rakshasas of the Puranic age, our Hindu ancestors of the seventh century had no other war- strategy to face it with than the imbecile, impotent and suicidal—one which offered milk to a venomous serpent. To encounter the wolf, the sheep had preferred its own neck! All this, as also our consequent enormous losses on the religious front, has been clearly shown in the earlier chapters. Hence, we shall now begin a critical study of the political side of this Hindu- Muslim epic struggle.

The Age-Long Relation of the Arabs with India 648. When I first read the word मुसल (Musal) in my student days in ‘Mousal Parva’ in one of the secondary Puranas like the Hariwansh, and wondered how the huge rushes uprooted by the Yadavas from the seashores became big pounding pestles, which crushed their bones as some lethal weapons would, I at once hit upon one probable explanation that perhaps the word, ‘Mousal’, might be an attempt at pun on the word Musal (मुसल) by the Puranic punsters, and that it might have been suggested by the word Musalman given to the Arab traders of the past after their conversion to Islam. But this fanciful explanation could not then be supported by the time-sense and other coordinating historical events. 649. Much later in the Andamans, when I began reading a lot of Bengali literature, I remember to have then perused an essay about the passing away of Lord Krishna either by Shree Madhusudan Datta, the famous Bengali poet, of the narative ‘Meghanad’ and the promoter of the ‘Amitrakshar’ metre, or by Bankimchandra, the poet who sang the national song, Vande Mataram! The said essay tries to offer a plausible explanation of the final exit of Balaram, after the death of Lord Krishna, along with his followers into the sea in his original form of Shesh(शेष), a snake. It meant to say that Balaram entered the Western sea at Dwarka in his ships and went away to some foreign island in a serpentine fashion. I then remembered to have read a parallel instance mentioned by an Arya Samaji traveller in the account of his travels. About fifty years ago, this Arya Samaji traveller had visited Arabia to see the actual condition of the Hindu residents of the place. After enquiry, he found there is a small section of people who grew tufts of hair on the top of their heads (as the Brahmins and other Hindus here did till very recently). They told him that, according to a very sacred legend handed down to them by their forefathers, they were supposed to have gone there from India at some very ancient time. It is believed that at the time of a great war in India, they had left for Arabia and established a colony there, but never got themselves mixed up with the factions of the natives there, nor with their

feuds and wars. That was why they could be seen in their much the same original state. The inference that the said traveller has drawn from this, is that these strange people must have been the same Hindus who had left India at the close of the epic struggle of the Kouravas and the Pandavas in Mahabharat. 650. If we then assume from the foregoing statements that Yadavas led by Balaram had gone to Arabia and formed a big colony there, two more things seem to support such an assumption. The first is that Tamil was originally called अरवी (Aravi). The aborigines of Arabia were mostly Shaivites, worshipping the (Shiv) ling (as most of historians agree) and their priests were called Druids (Dravid द्रविड़) in English, the same class that seems to have existed in Britain and Ireland as per the old legends told by the historians. 651. This is not the place to relate all these and other legends bearing on this topic, but it can be fairly assumed that Arabia and India had very close ties and trade relations from very ancient times, and there must have been Indian colonies established in that peninsula, and we can infer that like those in Java, Sumatra and other lands in the Eastern Ocean, in this land in the Western Ocean too, now known as Arabia and others, there must have once thrived Indian (especially South Indian) colonies, kingdoms and civilization. But we cannot offer it here, as yet, as any proven fact or theory. Only the various details leading to this conclusion have simply been summarized here briefly, so that they might be of some use to some future student of history, who might be attracted to it. 652. It is only pertinent here to write about the relation of India and Arabia during the seventh century when the Arabs had already courted Islam. Islam was born after the birth of Muhammad in A.D. 570, and it took at least forty to fifty years for the Arabs to join it. They had civil wars on the question of adopting this new faith. Yet the Muslim history is believed to start from their Hizri era in A.D. 622 and we might as well accept that belief for the present discussion. 653. Even before these new Arabic Muslim aggressors crossed their borders and fell on their neighbouring Persian empire, the Hindu states had practically spread once again to the very distant borders of Chandragupta Maurya's empire beyond the Indus. The Chinese traveller, Huen-tsang entered India from the north-east about A.D. 629 and has left

an eyewitness account of whatever he saw here. According to him, the Hindu borders had stretched far beyond the Indus to include what are now called Kabul, Ghazni and Gandhar. Almost all the Chinese, who came to India during those years, had to cross these Hindu states and the Indus, before they stepped into India. The Chinese of that era called the Hindus ‘Shintsu’ 654. That is why, they in China are referred to India by its most ancient name of Sindhu, and the Hindu people as ‘Shintsu’. It is quite plain that this ‘Shintsu’ was a Chinese corruption of Sindhu. This is yet another proof on the Chinese side that the word Hindu is derived originally from the word Sindhu. The first Arab invasion of Sindh and their defeat 655. Most of the modern histories refer to the Arab invasion on King Dahir as the first invasion, wherein the Hindu King was completely defeated. But this is a blatant falsehood. The first Arab invasion of Sindh took place in A.D. 640, in which the invaders were completely vanquished and their commander-in-chief was killed by the Hindus (cf: paragraph 324). The second major invasion of Dindh by the Arabs 656. But in A.D. 711, however, Mohammed Kasim marched on Sindh at the head of a fifty-thousand-strong army and while facing it bravely, Maharaj Dahir of Sindh was destroyed (cf. paragraphs 327 to 331). 657. But immediately within fifty years of this fall of King Dahir, the Rajputs and specially their leader, Bappa Raval of Chitod, wrested it away from the Arabs and he and other Hindu kings pushed their boundaries right from the Pariyatra Mountain, i.e. Hindukush mountains, Kashmir, Gandhar (which is now called Afghanistan) straight up to Sindhusagar (which we now shamelessly call Arabian sea). This Hindu sovereignty over the vast region lasted for three hundred years. Three hundred years amount to about seven Generations 658. Even when the Hindus held their sway over such a vast region for more than three hundred years and even when Sindh had been reconquered by the Rajputs within twenty-five years of its loss to Kasim. most of the English, as also the Hindu historians, never so much as mention it. On the contrary, great historians, litterateurs, well-known professors, all the world over as also the school-going children, have all along been repeating blindly that right from the time Kasim conquered Sindh, the Muslims

began their onward march right up to Rameshwaram and for all these twelve hundred years or so from A.D. 711, to the time the British left India in 1947, the Hindus had been rotting in slavery. This assumption is as false as it is insulting to the Hindus. This is an unbearable perversion of facts. 659. Hereafter, at least a truth-loving writer of history should scrupulously avoid this falsehood, this perversion of facts from school or college textbooks as also from those of a greater worth and importance. These three hundred years 660. For during these three hundred years i.e., up to A.D. 1000 or so in the whole of India, right from Hindukush to Ceylon and to Burma in the east, the Hindu Sovereign states ruled proudly. At such an early date as that, the Hindu kings in the south such as the Cher, Chowl, Pandya, Rashtrakut and others, sometimes the one, at others the next, ruled the vast southern seas so powerfully as to call themselves Trisamudreshwar. To say that the whole of India sweated in slavery under the Muslims or some other rulers, ignoring its prosperous and independent sovereign status, is to belie history. From A.D. 1000 To A.D. 1030 661. All of a sudden, like a comet, rose Mahmud of Ghazni at this time. At his accession to the throne, he vowed to Muslimize the whole of India and as has been already described in paragraphs 365 to 375, carried on a series of depredations and arson, religious persecution and rapes, and pollution and conversion, throughout the vast tract from Multan in Punjab to Someshwar in Sourashtra. 662. But it is because, at such cataclysmal times, the Hindus showed exemplary valour and perserevence and forbearance in facing all these calamities, never losing self-respect or courage, that Hindu states could again raise their banners overthrowing the Muslim ascendancy hardly within twenty-five to thirty years of Mahmud Ghazni's death in A.D. 1030, with the sole exception perhaps of the northern part of Punjab beyond the Indus. This can surely be cited as the astonishing illustration of the tenacity of any nation for that matter. 663. Secondly, it must be remembered that during the thirty or forty years of the political havoc wrought by Mahmud of Ghazni in the north, the whole of South India had been displaying daring and adventure while enjoying independence, prosperity and the mastery of the three seas as nonchalantly as before.

664. This is why even during those thirty or forty years of Ghazni’s raids, India as a whole can never be said to be slaving under the foreign heels. Of course, we do not deny that a small part of the north-western Punjab was annexed by Ghazni, establishing political as well as religious ascendancy firmly over there. However, it must also be borne in mind that even at that time, Kashmir was a Hindu state. Hundred-and-Fifty years after the death of Mahmud of Ghazni in A.D. 1030
665. A hundred-and-fifty years, i.e. about five generations after A.D. 1030, the whole of India, right from Kashmir to Assam and Burma in the north and Rameshwaram in the South, was politically independent, powerful and prosperous as before. Great preachers, saints and mahants and priests following the path of Shree Shankaracharya were, along with Smritikars Deval and Medhatithi, leading the cultural life of the whole of India and its overseas colonies. Sanskrit was the Indian priestly language throughout. Kashi was the cultural centre of the whole Hindu nation. The great wounds suffered by our Hindu nation on the political front during the raids of Mahmud of Ghazni were healed up by rulers dining these years. If the temple of Somnath was rebuilt on this side, new sky-high temples like that of Bhuvaneshwar and religious centres in Orissa and Assam rose to their full glory. The Hindu mastery of the Eastern, Western and the Southern seas, their trade and commerce, to-and-fro movement of thousands of their troops, their royal visits and return visits up to Maxico in the far east and to Africa in the west, continued unhampered and, therefore, the Indians overseas could keep constant contact with their motherland, and thereby prospered materially as well as culturally.
666. Can any Hindu-hater dare say, therefore, of this period at least, that the whole of India was rotting in abject slavery?

From the 12th Century A.D. to the end of the 13th Century A.D. 667. After the death of Mahmud of Ghazni, the Muslim power there grew far too weak because, in the first place, the population there consisted mainly of the aboriginal tribe converted quite recently by craft or coercion to Islam and secondly, because the Arabian Muslim States were being destroyed completely by the Mongols and the Turks, the two great Asian tribes that had not yet sworn allegiance to Islam, during their sweeping raids through the vast tract of Central Asia right up to Europe. 668. As has already been pointed out, many big and small Hindu communities and royal families ruled this region for a long time. Ghuri was one of these Hindu communities round about Ghazni, which was wholly converted to Islam during the Muslim religio-political aggressions. Being forced to follow the Muslim socio-religious practices for generations, this originally Hindu community of the Ghuries became too staunch and bigoted in their faith, that they ardently desired to rule the other Muslims in Ghazni. From the same Muslim (yet originally Hindu), Ghuri community rose to power one Mohammad Ghori, who, subjugating all the warring tribes during the internecine battles that broke out after the death of Mahmud of Ghazni, finally proclaimed himself, the Sultan of the State. In order to enlist the loyal support of all the Muslims, he made everywhere the stock-in-trade proclamation, which reverberated throughout that region and the northwest region of Hindusthan, that he would force all the kafirs (meaning Hindus) in India to accept Islam and would found an empire there. 669. However, in spite of his ambition, he could not do anything of the kind Mahmud of Ghazni had done before him in his seventeen horrible predatory raids because of the adverse circumstances. In A.D. 1176, Mohammed Ghori first captured the strong fort of Ooch near the confluence of the Panchnad with the Indus. Enraged at the weakness of her husband, the queen in the fort killed him and married her daughter to the victorious Mohammed surrendering the overlordship of the region at the same time.

670. Then in order to size up the Hindu kingdoms, Mohammed Ghori marched on the weakest one of Gujarat by proceeding stealthily along the borders of Rajasthan. For, the King of Gujarat having died, the Queen and her military chief enthroned a minor. This led Mohammed Ghori to think that it was weak enough to be attacked. But he was misled by appearances. For, in learning of Ghori's ensuing invasion, the Hindu army of Gujarat, augmented by those of other sympathising Hindu Kings, marched forward to the mountain-ranges of Abu. The Queen herself fought in the battle most valiantly, urging all the soldiers to defend the infant king whom, she said, she had delivered to their care. Inflamed by her words, the whole Hindu army fought so furiously that the Muslims were routed completely in all directions. Mohammed Ghori himself escaped narrowly and fled straight to his domain beyond the borders. Second major defeat of Mohammed Ghori by the Hindus
671. Mohammed Ghori, however, was not to be daunted by adversities. So, without being discouraged by his recent defeat at Abu, he once again marched on India in A.D. 1191, invading this time the territory of Prithviraj Chouhan, whereupon that gallant monarch of Delhi along with as many Hindu rulers as he could then gather, advanced against Ghori and joining battle at Tarayan to the north of Karnool near Panipat, dealt a crushing defeat on the invader after a bloody day. Mohammed Ghori himself was captured alive by Prithviraj. This battle is known as the Battle of Talavadi.
672. Emperor (Samrat) Prithviraj and his feudatory princes were after all Hindus by birth and belonged to the topmost Rajput ranks. Hence, they sincerely believed that to let go the captive national enemy alive, however treacherous he might be, to give back his kingdom with all pomp and show, was the highest form of religious conduct, conducive to heavenly bliss as regards a true warrior was concerned.
673. सांप बिखारी देशभूमिचा ये घेउं चावा। अवचित गांठुनि ठकवुनि भुलवूनि कसाहि ठेचावा॥ Were a serpent (an inveterate national enemy) to come with a view to biting the motherland, he should be smashed to pieces with a surprise attack, deceit or cunning or in any other way possible. Although this war- strategy of Shree Krishna and Chanakya was taught to the Hindus long ago, at that time, it appeared to them like one of the five deadliest sins. For, as we have already shown in paragraphs 397 to 454, the whole of the Hindu

nation was at that time utterly infatuated with the perverted sense of virtues. But the Muslims, however, followed this very war-strategy most scrupulously. 674. See how: Had Prithviraj Chouhan, instead of Mohammed Ghori, invaded Ghazni and had the Muslims defeated the Rajputs (as the Rajputs had actually done with Mohammed Ghori), they would have not only killed Prithviraj but would also have converted, by using force and cunning, all the captive Rajputs to Islam, would have made them their wives and children slaves for the whole of their lives in their houses, and the beautiful among the Hindu captive women Ghori himself might have taken into his harem and ravaged. To such a damned, demoniacal enemy of our religion like Mohammed Ghori, was mercy shown by Prithviraj and the other confederated Rajput rulers, following sheepishly the textual maxim क्षमा वीरस्य भूषणम् (a maxim to be used only in the case of some noble and magnanimous enemy!) without the slightest consideration being given to the propriety of time, place and the circumstances and persons involved! Nay, they showed mercy not only to Mohammed Ghori but even to the whole Muslim army, only to respect the noble Rajput tradition of assuring full protection from fear to those who surrendered meekly. Only an oral promise was obtained from Mohammed Ghori that he would not again invade India and he was allowed to go alive. His domain of Ghazni, too, was returned to him and proud, more of their suicidal and credulous generosity than of their having defeated the Muslim army of Mohammed Ghori, those Rajput warriors marched triumphantly to Delhi and celebrated their victory! But what did Mohammed Ghori do on Reaching Ghazni? 675. Did Mohammed Ghori forget his enmity to the Hindus because of this generosity of Prithviraj Chouhan? No! On the contrary like a snake, provoked by a slight injury, Mohammed Ghori and all the Muslims in his kingdom, without any sense of gratitude for the Hindu imbecile generosity were all the more embittered, and resolved to crush the Hindus altogether. And with a huge army, Mohammed Ghori once again attacked Prithviraj in A.D. 1193. The Rajput ‘rasos’ and the best among them the ‘Prithviraj Raso’ of Chand Bhat 676. In fact, it is impossible and improper to write any trustworthy history of the Rajputs without closely studying the contemporary historical

accounts written by the Rajput Bhats, Charans in their heroic and, to some exent, poetic style and known in that region as ‘Rasos’. But it is doubtful whether amongst our historians, there be five or at the most ten such as have read them with any scientific curiosity! That is why none of the histories written of the Rajputs of the times or, for that matter of the whole Hindu society of that age, with the solitary exception of that of Col. Tod, really deserves to be truly called histories. They are mere translations or transliterations of stray incoherent remarks and disconnected and perverted accounts of the Muslim or the English writers. Independent ‘Rasos’ seem to have been composed on valiant Rajput Ranas, proud of their religion (Hamir Raso, Chhatrasal Raso, etc.). The ‘Rasos’ are not pure, unadulterated histories! But the forceful and vivid descriptions of the various events, their high fervour and the fact of their authors’ participation to a lesser or greater degree, in those particular historical events, make those grand incidents live, as it were, before the imagination of the reader, as the above-mentioned sketchy outlines of chronological accounts can never do. ‘Prithviraj Raso’ by the famous Chand Bhat, who was in the pay of Prithviraj, bears out the above remark by its epic serenity, calm dignity and moving pathos in the descriptions of the Hindus of the time and of its account of the first Muslim raids from the north-west. 677. The Story of the fire race (अग्नि-कुल) 678. The Nagari Pracharini Sabha had undertaken to republish this ‘Prithviraj Raso’ in 1922-23, when 1 was in prison at Ratnagiri, where some parts of it were sent to me on request by my brother for my essay on Hindutwa. I do not know, however, whether this whole book was ever published. These non-Hindus are Shameless, we Hindus, fight shy! निर्लज्ज म्लेच्छ लजै नहीं, हम हिन्दू लजवान् 679. The ‘Prithviraj Raso’ describes the Hindu-Muslim skirmishes and frays in the epic style of Mahabharat, and the poet has praised the Hindus highly for vanquishing Mohammed Ghori again and again and then setting him free to go alive, because this noble act of the Hindus, he thought, added to their glory! But when Mohammed Ghori again attacked Prithviraj in A.D. 1193, violating his promise that he would never again invade India, Chand Bhat wrote wrathfully, “We Hindus are scrupulous about religious

and irreligious conduct, about truth and falsehood, we fight shy of sinful acts, but these non-Hindus (meaning Muslims) are utterly shameless!’’ 680. But the breach of promise, which could Muslimize the whole of the kafir state, was a highly religious duty for the Muslims, and because Mohammed Ghori broke his promises again and again, he became a Gazi among the Muslims! This fact also must be engraved on the hearts of the Hindus that (the Muslims who acted irreligiously according to Chand Bhat were blessed with success by God, whereas the Hindus who never broke any promise but showed the quixotic greatness of setting the enemy free alive, were crushed outright owing to their steadfast adherene to their so- called religious conduct! 681. There was another reason why Mohammed Ghori thought it to be the best opportunity to march against Prithviraj, Jaychand the King of Kanouj, had secretly given a solemn promise to help him against Prithviraj, his direst enemy, a promise that later proved fatal to himself. In A.D. 1193, the Hindu-Muslim armies met at ‘Sthaneshwar, where in the thick of the fray fell in the hands of the Muslims dead or alive the Rajput princes, Chamundrai, Hamir, Hada and good many other warriors! Muslim losses in lives were also terrible. All this detailed account should really be read, if possible, from the ‘Prithviraj Raso’ itself, because in the historical accounts by the Muslim writers, nothing but censure and condemnation of the kafirs can only be met with, and with the exception of these poetical Rasos, histories written by Hindu writers, do not simply exist. The Muslim writers vouch that Prithviraj was, at length, killed in the battle and the Muslims were victorious. Soon after this victory, Mohammed Ghori marched straight to Delhi, because he had to perform his diabolically pious deed of demolishing the Hindu temples, of slaughtering the masses of Hindus, of arson and especially of ravaging the young wife of Prithviraj, the daughter of Jaychand, Sanyogita, who was well-known at that time for her exceptional beauty. Fast as Mohammed Ghori made for Delhi, faster still went the tragic news of the defeat of Prithviraj and of his death or probable capture by the Muslims, to the royal palace of Delhi, whereupon, according to the pre-arranged plan, perhaps the empress Sanyogita lost not a minute to face the danger boldly in the traditional Rajput way. At once, leaving aside all consideration for wealth, parental love, fraternal affection, the attachment to her earthly existence and breaking all ties of love and duty, she jumped from the top-most floor of the palace and killed herself with the

word Jayhar (जयहर) --glory to God Shiv! on her lips, she performed Jayhar—Johar! What of the empress, Sanyogita, hundreds of other Hindu women leapt one after another into the Yamuna (Jamuna) and drowned themselves before the Muslims could even touch or pollute them! 682. On reaching Delhi, Mohammed Ghori immediately set to plunder and destroy the royal palaces and the citizens with fire and sword to his heart’s content. Proclaiming next the establishment of the Muslim power there, he appointed a trusted slave of his, one Kutubuddin, as his chief administrator and went straight off to Ghazni. Later on, within two years in A.D. 1195, Mohammed Ghori attacked Jaychand. With his administrator Kutubuddin to assist him, he marched on Kanouj, where in a furious scuffle, Jaychand was utterly vanquished and killed. In a sense, the Indian King received a fitting reward for his high treason against the Hindu nation! 683. Nearly a hundred years or more had elapsed since the dreadful raids of Mahmud of Ghazni and as such their recollection was growing fainter like an evil hallucination or dream in the Hindu mind. So, with these two invasions of Mohammed Ghori, every Hindu King, Emperor, Saint, dignitary of every sort, down to the hut-dweller was shocked to the marrow of his bones at this miserable plight of Hindu courage and strength. Mohammed Ghori, too, was elated at this unexpected victory, and hearing of Kashi (Benares) as the holiest of Hindu places of worship, he headed straight for it in order to destroy Hindu religion. 684. The people at Kashi were taken unaware by this fanatical and bloodthirsty raid and, as such, had no arrangement to face it. Naturally, Mohammed Ghori captured Kashi in no time, started forthwith to slaughter Hindu men and women, to plunder the Hindu houses, to ravish Hindu women and specially to force countless Hindu men and women to accept Islam and slavery. Above all, he raised to big heaps of rubble and brick every Hindu temple and broke the idols within it to bits. 685. But he immediately heard the news that in the Hindu states beyond and especially in Rajasthan, plans were being chalked out of encircling him; and having the bitter experience of the united Hindu swordsmen twice before, he satisfied himself with whatever he could achieve during one sweep from Kanouj to Kashi (Benaras) and went back to Ghazni. As before, he appointed his versatile, brave and trusted slave Kutubuddin himself as the Governor of the recently won territory up to Kanouj.

686. And alas! At this very evil, unpropitious moment, our age-old Capital of the Hindu empire since the days of Yudhishthir, this our Indraprastha, Hastinapur or modern Delhi was lost to the non-Hindus and there was laid the foundation stone of the Muslim empire for centuries to come! Delhi became the centre of servitude and remained so, rotting under the foreign rule for the next five or six hundred years (with very short breaks in between), till at last, the Marathas triumphantly hoisted their saffron- coloured flag at Attock, and overthrowing the Muslim imperial power beyond, made it the handmaid of the Hindu imperial authority.
687. Soon after he reached Ghazni, Mohammed Ghori was killed (in the opinion of some Muslim historians) by a small band of soldiers in his army, but Chand Bhat gives a colourful and detailed description in his Raso of how Prithviraj seized the one unique opportunity to kill him and avenged his defeat. Although no other support for this folklore can be found, as yet, it is not unworthy of a mention here. The essence of this superbly described folklore in the poetical ‘Prithviraj Raso’ is that Prithviraj was captured alive by Ghori and was not killed in the battle. Mohammed Ghori took him to Ghazni as a captive and struck out his eyes, making him blind. At this shocking news, Chand Bhat went on his own to Ghori’s court at Ghazni in order to do his traditional duty as a Bhat of laying down his life for his emperor. Charans and Bhats were supposed to bear a charmed life—they were not to be killed—and the Muslim rulers also could not generally break this convention! Sultan Mohammed Ghori too asked Chand Bhat to have his say. Chand Bhat was a well-known and ready-witted, facile poet, who sang out at the top of his sonorous voice a heroic ballad to mean, “My master is your captive and you are sure to end his life as best you please. But my sole request is that I should also be killed with him in the same or any other manner. Secondly, I submit that the Sultan should himself witness a demonstration of the exceptional skill of my master in the wonderful art of hitting the sound (शब्दबेध) in archery. “This request made the Sultan curious about this wonderful art. Even then, with every precaution, the necesary arrangments for the demonstration were made. Twenty-one pans were hung in a row. Sultan Mohammed sat eagerly with his select retinue and his noblemen at a high place in the court to witness the feat. Chand Bhat and Prithviraj, the last Hindu Emperor of Delhi, were made to sit before the pans in the wake of a strong military guard. Then, as each pan was struck, the stroke rang clear

and loud. As soon as the sound rang out, the blinded Emperor Prithviraj took an unmistakable aim at the pan concerned and hit the mark. As this feat was repeated with exceptional accuracy of aim for twenty-one times, the whole court was thrilled with wonder and admiration and the clapping of hands went on unceasingly and finally the Sultan himself shouted aloud ‘shabas’ shabas’—bravo, bravo!! At that very moment, the captive Chand Bhat sitting near Prithviraj composed a couplet (दोहा) on the spur of the moment, telling Prithviraj to shoot, without wasting a moment, the Sultan sitting at a particular distance, shouting ‘shabas, shabas—Bravo, bravo’. At this, the blinded Emperor Prithviraj took an aim in the direction of the Sultan shouting ‘Shabas, Shabas’ and killed him with a sharp arrow. At once, there was an uproar and confusion everywhere, but before the guards of the Sultan could fall upon them with their weapons, Prithviraj and Chand Bhat drew out their own swords and cut off their own heads! The Slave Dynasty 688. Soon after the death of Mohammed Ghori, his slave (governor) administrator in India, Kutubuddin, himself became the Sultan and established his independent kingdom at Delhi. Kutubuddin was a Turk by birth, but as he was a slave of Mohammed Ghori, his dynasty is called the Slave Dynasty. The fictitious story of Kutubminar 689. The legend that he built the famous Kutubminar as a memorial to his victory is altogether false. This pillar of victory was built as Vishnu stambh —the pillar of Vishnu—by a certain Hindu emperor, most probably by Samudra Gupta and was dedicated to Lord Vishnu. Recent excavations have discovered an ancient idol of Shree Vishnu near the pillar, which supports the above assertion. Thereafter, Prithviraj Chouhan improved it to a great extent, so in the Rajput period it was sometimes called Prithvistambh. The Muslims had grown very much fond of obliterating the names and all other traces of the old monuments and stamping them with their own seals wherever they went on with their expeditions. Hence in India, too, they changed the old original names of the capitals they conquered, the holy places of pilgrimage, the important sites, works of art and gave them all their Muslim names. According to this mischievous habit, Kutubuddin named this very monument of Vishnustambh, Kutubminar. At many places on that pillar, he got the hymns and aphorisms from the Koran engraved in Arabic, and added some new features to the pillar here and there. But the

blocks of stones that were required for this purpose were intentionally procured from the demolished Hindu temples and the idols therein. Raids on Chitod and Hindu Victories 690. While Kutubuddin was conquering the Punjab, Delhi, Kanouj and other Hindu states, he was uneasy about the Rajput states. Soon he learnt of the death of Rana Samarsingh of Chitod and of the succession of his minor son, Karna, to the throne. He was not a fool to let go this fine opportunity to subdue it. But the mother of the minor king of Chitod, Karundevi, was very brave and of great ablilities. That young mother-queen took the leadership of the army and inspiring the other neighbouring Hindu states to fight on her side, dealt a memorable defeat on the Muslim army in a battle near Ambar (Amber or Amer). In order to avoid complete destruction, Kutubuddin retreated to Delhi. Later on, when Rahup succeeded Karna to the throne of Chitod, Kutubuddin's army once again marched on Chitod. But once again, the Rajputs put the Muslim army to rout. Rana Rahup proved to be a very able ruler. The Muslims, therefore, never thought of invading Chitod till his death. 691. But it must be remembered here that even while the Muslims launched repeated attacks on the Hindu states, the Hindus as a rule, never invaded them nor ever pursued the fleeing Muslim army, nor again besieged the Muslim localities left behind and destroyed them or their masjids. It is because the Hindus never thus retaliated the Muslim aggression owing to their perverse sense of virtues, the latter again and again perpetrated these crimes against the former. 692. After Kutubuddin’s death in A.D. 1210, one or two incapable Sultans came to the throne of Delhi, but as they were soon deposed, Sultana Razia began to rule. She was well trained in the affairs of the State by Kutubuddin himself. She attended the court or her army in the guise of a man. Later on, she fell in love with a trusty slave of hers, named Jalaluddin, who chiefly manoeuvred things in the court and began to live openly with her. This was, however, most detestable to the Turkish noblemen of her court, because Jalaluddin was a Negro. The Turks thought themselves to be of high rank and despised the Negroes as lowbred. 693. This will make another point clear to the reader that although the Turks, the Mongols, the Arabs, the Pathans, the Negroes (Abyssinians) and others called themselves Muslims, and proudly proclaimed the absence of caste differences and exhibited in place and out of place, the equality of

status for all in order to belittle the Hindus on that account, they were not altogether free from those caste differences. These distinctions were on the contrary, far too pronounced amongst them and caused a good deal of trouble. 694. Shortness of space compels us to refer the reader to a chapter in our book, ‘Essay on Abolition of Castes’ (जात्युच्छेदक निबंध) named ‘Sects and Factions Amongst the Muslims’. 695. In the end, the Turkish noblemen rose in rebellion against the Negro J alaluddin and Sultana Razia under the leadership of Altunia, the governor of Sarhind, and defeated Razia in a battle, whereupon, Razia cast her spell upon the victor Altunia and married him. The newly-wedded couple marched on Delhi once again, but were defeated and killed by the noblemen and the army there. After considerable court intrigues and plots, and counter-plots a nobleman named ‘Bulban’, usurped the throne and became the Sultan of Delhi. Mongol Raids—Chengeezkhan 696. During the reign of this very slave dynasty, Mongol raids on India’s farthest borders through Central Asia were causing constant trouble. Like whirlwinds, great armies from Mongolia who had not so far sworn their allegiance to Islam, went on trampling over, and crushing, all the nations and countries from the Pacific to the Black Sea. Their leader, in those days, was the world-famous Chengeezkhan, who till the last moment of his life, heaped all possible ignominies and insults on the Muslim and Arab States and the Muslim religion. He deposed and killed the Khaliph of Baghdad, whom the Muslims highly respected as the political and religious representative of God, and razed to the ground the city of Baghdad. Yet the Allah could do absolutely nothing against him. With his ploughshare of destruction, he furrowed the vast territory right up to Russia without the least obstruction; he overthrew the kingdom of Kiev in Russia, ravaged the whole tract straight up to the Black Sea with massacre, plunder, arson and annexed it to his trans- continental empire. But no power on this vast earth dared restrain this destructive hand of Chengeezkhan! On their way back from Russia, these Mongol armies were obviously to dash violently against India. But quite mysteriously, he went straight off to Mongolia, after first subduing the Muslim kingdom of Ghazni and quite suddenly died there in A.D. 1227. Later on, this extensive empire passed into the hands of one of this Mongol race—Kublai Khan. These Mongols had already reduced the whole of China

and Korea. Kublai Khan made the age-long Chinese capital of Peking his own. 697. One after-effect of this Mongol-Turkish struggle was that they had a mixed progeny, which was called Moghal or Mughal. These Moghals frequently tried to rush into India and finally reached Delhi. Some of them took to Islam, but the old Muslims did not treat them equally; they considered them to be low-born. These Moghals founded in Delhi, a separate colony of theirs, named ‘Moghalpura’. Some others of them went to the Rajputs for shelter because the old Muslims scoffed at them. Especially, some two thousand of them sought employment in the army of the valiant Hindu king of Ratanbhor. 698. Sultan Bulban of the Slave Dynasty was, in a sense, the most powerful and able; he called himself the true representative of Allah. But as regards his hatred towards the Hindus, he surpassed everybody from the emperor to the meanest of servants. He imposed various heavy taxes on the Hindus, forbade their pilgrimages to the holy places while their forcible conversions and massacres went on unceasingly from village to village. 699. Bulban died in old age in A.D. 1286. There being no able person from the Slave Dynasty to succeed him, within four years, a nobleman from the Khilji family, Jalaluddin, slew the sons and grandsons of Bulban and proclaimed himself the Sultan of Delhi, putting a stop to the Slave Dynasty for ever, and starting his own. Khilji Dynasty 700. This Khilji dynasty of Jalalluddin called itself Pathans (Afghans), if at all it was of Turkish extraction. Jalalluddin himself was, as the other Sultans and Muslims were, fired with the devilish ambition to destory the Hindu political, as well as religious power, root and branch. He was just, as regards other departments of administration, but was partial to the Muslims. Seeing the tremendous loss of Muslim lives in the siege of Ratanbhor, he raised the siege and decamped saying, “I value a single hair of a Muslim more than a hundred such forts.” But this wisdom of his was so belated, that the cause for this action of his has to be sought in the unbeaten valour of the Rajputs. After this failure, he never again troubled the Rajputs. 701. The old Jalalluddin really wanted to enthrone his one ambitious, brave and staunch Muslim nephew, Allauddin after his own death. So he had sent him with a large army to face the Rajputs. But not content with this assignment, which seemed too meagre for his daring Hindu-hatred, he

marched straight off without the Sultan's permission to conquer the southern Hindu states and rob them of their reported fabulous wealth, of which he had lately grown covetous beyond every limit. The first Hindu state to fall a victim to this unexpected attack of Allauddin was that of the Yadava of Devgiri. 702. There is one special point to be noted as regards this southern conquest of Allauddin. The Hindu society of the south had, for more or less two thousand years, from the early beginnings of the modern history, i.e. from 500 or 600 B.C. to the 13th century A.D., been enjoying complete political, religious and social independence and had been economically highly prosperous. It had never been successfully invaded throughout these two thousand years. Whoever of the foreign invaders dared to do so, was ruthlessly crushed on the borders themselves. So, this invasion of Allauddin was the first of its kind and was bound to be successful with far-reaching harmful effects. Because of this special revolutionary and harmful character of this invasion of Allauddin, it has to be dealt with in a fresh chapter. ❑