1st Glorious Epoch - Chandragupta - Chanakya

Six Glorious Epochs of Indian History: Chapter 1

Alexander's Aggression  

  Alexander invasion took place in 326 B.C when modern European Nations like England, France, Germany,etc were not born. Roman Empire was also not there. At this time Greek was having small cities ruled by independent powers. A highly well-organised, unitary and very powerful Persian empire started invading Greeks. They were not able to resist the. King Philip from Macedonia started conquering small Greek republics but died before he can conquer whole Greek. His son Alexander took over his throne and conquered whole of Greek and ready to face Persian in war. A famous war took place field of Arbela(331 B.C.). He simply routed vast Persian army. At this time he wanted to conquer the whole World and therefore planned to invade India.

Geographical Dimensions of India

  At this time, Indian Kingdoms had spread far beyond the Indus right upto boundary of Persia. The mountain range Hindukush at that time was referred as Paropnisus by Greeks. Todays, Afganistan was called Gandhar and river Kabul was called Kubha in our ancient literature.Right from Indus river till the sea all of Indian States were strictly following vedic religion and most of them were republics also called as 'Ganas' or 'Ganarajyas'. Their constitution was essentially democratic.

Ionian and Yavan
   These Greeks were the descendants of Anu, the son of Yayati. Anwayan was later on corrupted to Ionian. Indians called these Greeks 'Yavanas' from the very beginning as per our Sanskrit literature.

Buddha Not Heard of From Gandhar-Panchanad to Sindh

   All the Greek writers of that time gave various description of the life of the people from these parts of India. But there is no mention of Buddha in any of those text. The only reference we cna found is Vedic religion. This means after 250-300 years after Buddha death there was no Buddist cult till some of the people corrupted Buddha teachings and started to oppose Vedic religion for their own benefit which was against Buddha teachings.

University of Taxila and a Strange coincidence

    At this time Taxila and Patliputra were two famous univerties. Students from different countries use to come here for education. Many princess of different states also studied here. When Alexander entered Taxila a brilliant youth was learning science of war and politics in the University of Taxila. He was called Chandragupta. The guru of this youth was Chanakya. Both of these were observing silently.


War With Porus

    The king of Taxila, Ambuj or Ambhi bowed down to Alexander. After taking over Taxila, Alexander immediately sent ultimatum to tall the neighbouring Indian States, demanding unconditional surrender. Taxila immediate neighbour King Porus refused to bow down to Alexander. King Porus strength was War chariots and Elephants whereas the Greeks were cavalry brigades. The river Vitasta (Jhelum) separated the two armies. Just before the war begins, heavy rain started. Alexander some how crossed the river and surprised King Porus. Still King Porus tried to faught bravely. But his war chariots and Elephants almost became useless on the slippery ground against the horsemen. In this battle, Porus and his Elephant got grievously wounded and fell into the hands of enemy.

    After capturing Porus, Alexander didn't kill him to avoid any hatred towards Greek from local people and nearby kingdom. After this he started to stabilize his possition and ordered fresh army from Greek.

Republic of Saubhootis and Kathas

    As per Greek writer both of these republics were democratic. Special feature of these republics - for a physically strong generation, they use to marry based on physical strength and beauty. State authorities use to examine a newly born child within 3 months. If the child is having some defect or suffering from some incurable disease, it was immediately put to death. Almost same laws were there in the Republic of Sparta. Same was the case with "Vrishnis Republic". Also, there were many other republics where not only Men but Women also undergo mandatory military training.

The Republic of Youdheyas

     Republic of the Youdheyas spread south of river Vyas in Panchanad(Punjab). Mandatory training for everyone between 18 to 21 years. Also called as "A Nation in arms".  Knowing about these Youdheyas, Alexander army struck with terror and refused to cross river to fight. Alexander gave his famous speech to motivate his army but all was in vain. He was so depressed that he didn't came out of his tent for almost 3 days.


Alexander's Retreat
    When Alexander sensed that he can't convince his army to fight so he told them that we will go back to Greece. But we can't take same route backwards as it will lift the moral of the territory we won. So, we will go to the sea along bank of Indus and then take sea route.

Republic of the Malavas and the Shudrakas
    Both of these were hostile towards each other from long time. But united to fight Alexander to save their country. They intermarried to bring social unity among them. A bloody war took place at some city (name is not known). As these united republics were keep on fighting, once again Alexander's army discontent reached the climax and there were rebellious whispers against Alexander orders. Even at this time Alexander wanted his army to climb up the ladder and leap straight into enemy stronghold. Since, none of them came forward so Alexander took the lead. But suddenly one arrow pierced the heart of Alexander.

Alexander Rolled into a Pool of Blood
     After several days Alexander regained consciousness. At this point he did a peace treaty with these republic that they will not harass him and his retreating army.

Masaga tribe and Republic of  Agrashrenis & Brahmanakas
    7 thousand armed Masaga tribe fought both Men and Women till last of them were killed. Agreshrenis: They gave tough fight, fought for every inch and at last they set their houses on fire and their wives and children and all threw themselves into the flames. They made Johar(Jai Har). These instances were cited by Greek writers.

Alexander's Homeward Voyage and His Death
    After reaching the sea, Alexander divided his army into two. One sailed through sea (Alexander accompanied them) and another took the land route through Baluchistan.
    While Alexander was in Sind, various republic started to revolt. As his army was completely exhausted so he didn't did anything. He died in 323 B.C.

Greek Governor Beheaded
    Nicanor and Philip were governor. After Alexander's Death, republic of Ashvinis assassinated Philip with his small Greek regiment. Almost all republics from Panchanad to Sindh became independent within six months of Alexander's Death. All Greek symbols, colonies were uprooted. All these were planned and executed by Chanakya and Chandragupta Maurya.

 Alexander's Retreat
    When Alexander sensed that he can't convince his army to fight so he told them that we will go back to Greece. But we can't take same route backwards as it will lift the moral of the territory we won. So, we will go to the sea along bank of Indus and then take sea route.

Republic of the Malavas and the Shudrakas
    Both of these were hostile towards each other from long time. But united to fight Alexander to save their country. They intermarried to bring social unity among them. A bloody war took place at some city (name is not known). As these united republics were keep on fighting, once again Alexander's army discontent reached the climax and there were rebellious whispers against Alexander orders. Even at this time Alexander wanted his army to climb up the ladder and leap straight into enemy stronghold. Since, none of them came forward so Alexander took the lead. But suddenly one arrow pierced the heart of Alexander.

Alexander Rolled into a Pool of Blood
     After several days Alexander regained consciousness. At this point he did a peace treaty with these republic that they will not harass him and his retreating army.

Masaga tribe and Republic of  Agrashrenis & Brahmanakas
    7 thousand armed Masaga tribe fought both Men and Women till last of them were killed. Agreshrenis: They gave tough fight, fought for every inch and at last they set their houses on fire and their wives and children and all threw themselves into the flames. They made Johar(Jai Har). These instances were cited by Greek writers.


Author: Vinayak Damodar Savarkar
1> https://swarajyamag.com/politics/veer-savarkar-the-man-and-mission-beyond-the-mercy-petitions

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Bunch Of Thoughts: The Nation and its Problem - X

                                                         Children Of The Motherland

Theme:

Detailed Explanation:

 As compared to Arya and Bhartiya, The word Hindu alone connotes correctly and completely the meaning which we want to convey.It is incorrect to say the name is given by foreigners, We find the name Sapta-Sindhu in the oldest records of the world - the Rig-Veda itself - as an epithet applied to our land and our people. And it is also well known that the syllable 'S' in Sanskrit is at times changed to 'H' as some of our Prakrit languages and even in European languages. And thus the name Hapta-Hindu and then 'Hindu' came into currency.

 The Brihaspati Agama says: The land created by the gods and stretching from Himalayas to the Indu (i.e.Southern) ocean is called Hindusthan.

 We should allow fresh breeze to come in form all ideologies  and assimilate whatever is beneficial to us. But to do that, is it necessary that we should demolish the walls of our house and bring down the roofs upon our heads? Broadmindedness, if stretched beyond the practical limit, would only end up in finishing our national entity.

  In Semitic religions-Judaism, Christianity and Islam-a single way of worship is prescribed for all. Due to these some countries took extreme step of ousting religion itself. Like Russia, communist states,etc. This had effect on us as well. People forgot that these narrow mindset never existed here. This has resulted in the disruption of bond existed between us.

 Some people differentiate between north and south. They say North is being 'tyrannised' under the philosophical 'imperialism' of the South! Because, all the major schools of philosophical thought that have encompassed the whole of our land including the remotest corners of the North were propounded by the great teachers born in the South. How absurd, is my head dominating over my legs? Some people begun to feel ashamed of calling themselves Hindus. People take pride in calling themselves as non-hindus. Sri Guru Govind Singh had declared, "A true Sikh is one who has faith in the Vedas and Bhagavad-gita and who worships Rama and Krishna."

 Due to present day politics, politicians are going to the extent to grant special privileges to non-hindus. Almost everyone try to dissociate themself from hindu identity to get special favor.

 Once the glory of our culture Varna-Vyavastha is now mistaken as social discrimination instead of social order. This distinctions in that social order did not imply any discrimination.If a Brahaman became great by imparting knowledge, a Kshatriya was hailed as equally great by for destroying the enemy. No less important was the Vaishya who fed and sustained society through agriculture and trade or the Shudra who served society through his art and craft (Few examples of Varna Migration).  There is no instance where castes hampered the progress or disrupted the unity of society in ancient time which continued for thousands of years.

Varna Migration - Few Examples

The concept of Varnas – Shudra, Kshatriya, Vaishya, Brahmin – being merit based and NOT birth based is not merely a theoretical concept. It was practiced in ancient era. In Vedas it is mentioned that Head is Brahmin, Arms is Kshatriya, Stomach is Vaishya and Feet is Shudra. There is no question of any differentiation among them. The body which is having these is Hindu. If you take out any one component body/society cannot survive.

Here are few examples from our ancient history:

1> Aitareya Rishi was son of a Daasa or criminal but became a Brahmin of highest order and wrote Aitareya Brahman and Aitareyopanishad. Aitareya Brahman is considered critical to understand Rigveda.

2> Ailush Rishi was son of a Daasi, gambler and of low character. However he researched on Rigveda and made several discoveries. Not only was he invited by Rishis but also made an Acharya. (Aitareya Brahman 2.19)

3> Satyakaam Jaabaal was son of a prostitute but became a Brahmin.

4> Prishadh was son of King Daksha but became a Shudra. Further he did Tapasya to achieve salvation after repenting. (Vishnu Puran 4.1.14)

5>Vidur was son of a servant but became a Brahmin and minister of Hastinapur empire.

6> Vatsa became a Rishi though born to a Shudra (Aitareya Brahman 2.19)

7> Trishanku was a king but became a Chandal.

8>Dhrist was son of Nabhag (Vaishya) but became Brahmin and his son became Kshatriya (Vishnu Puran 4.2.2)

9>  Nabhag, son of King Nedishtha became Vaishya. Many of his sons again became Kshatriya. (Vishnu Puran 4.1.13)

10> Further in his generation, some became Brahmin again (VP 9.2.23)

11> Sons of Vishwamitra became Shudra. Vishwamitra himself was a Kshatriya who later became a Brahmin.

12> Matanga was son of Chandal but became a Brahmin. (Mahabharat Anushasan Parva Chapter 3)

13>  Shaunak became Brahmin though born in Kshatriya family. (VP 4.8.1). In fact, as per Vayu Puran, Vishnu Puran and Harivansh Puran, sons of Shaunak Rishi belonged to all four Varnas.

14>  As per Bhagvat, Agniveshya became Brahmin though born to a king.

15>  Haarit became Brahmin though born to Kshatriya (VP 4.3.5)

16> Pravriddha was son of Raghu King but became a Rakshas.

17> Raavan was born from Pulatsya Rishi but became a Rakshas.

18> Rathotar born in Kshatriya family became a Brahmin as per Vishnu Puran and Bhagvat.

19>  Many verses of adulterated Manu Smriti (10.43-44) says that certain castes were earlier Kshtariya but became Shudra later. Inspite of the fact that these are adulterated but prove that concept of Varna migration did exist. 

Several gotras are common across Brahmins, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Dalits implying that all of them hailed from same family but rather got entrapped in the stupid casteism.

Bunch Of Thoughts: The Nation and its Problem - IX - 2

                                             Wanted Heroic Devotion

Theme: Devotion to motherland should be dynamic not passive. This earth is for valiant. We should aim to bring the motherland in the undivided original form.

Detailed Explanation:

  Some people say “What is this so-called motherland, except stones and clay’. Same people don’t have answer why one consider his mother different from others. Why have devotion to her? Mere intellect is not enough.

 Take example for frog and snake. They have no idea of mother at all. Gradually as life evolves, in mammals mother feeds her young ones in their childhood. Birds take care of their offsprings, once offspring are independent they leave their mother.  Man is supposed to be at top in the scale of evolution.If he is cultured, his love and adoration for his mother continues even after she ceases to be physically useful to him.He sees so many other things to which he owes a debt of gratitude. He begins to look upon them also as mother.e.g, river, cow, soil, etc, Thus to look upon one’s land of birth as mother is a sign of a high state of human evolution. 

The Vedas declare.

 (The Earth is my mother, I am her child.)

   The devotion to motherland should be dynamic. Formal way like worshiping with flowers, lights, chants of hymns, etc is passive way. Dynamic aspect of devotion is to manifest in practical national life a spirit of sacrifice in every possible way.A heart fired with such devotion can never tolerate the slightest affront to the object of its devotion. Dynamic devotion can only protect dharma. We can see in past when many foreign aggressors attacked Nation. At that time only dynamic one was able to save the Nation. That is also the lesson of our puranas which depict the stories of the struggle between devas(gods) and rakshasas(demons). We often see devas, in spite of their divinity, being beaten down by the organised and aggressive rakshasas. And it was only when the devas roused themselves to heroic action that they could triumph over the rakshasas.

 Indeed, "veerabhogya vasundhara" (This Earth is for the valiant) sums up the philosophy of a successful life in this world.

  There was indeed this lack of devotion, that's why partition happened. The son of this soil were not courageous enough to prevent that. Partition cannot be a settled fact. We are here to unsettle it. Things get settled or unsettled solely by the will of man. A true son can never accept other than a whole mother.A spirit of compromise, an attitude of purchasing peace by parting with portions of our motherland to whoever chooses to lay axe on her, has taken hold of our people. Even the memory of those parts under enemies’ possession is dying away.We have especially to guard ourselves and our coming generations in this regard.

   At times, political boundaries undergo some changes on account of political impacts and the whimsical fortunes of war. But it can never mean that the portions we have lost politically are not parts of our motherland at all.Was not the whole of our country, until recently, under the foreign domination of the British? Before that, was not part of our country under Muslim domination for centuries?If, today, we say that what we have lost to the aggressors, whether they be the Muslims or Chinese, is not ours but belongs to them by right, then it only means that we have lost the will to fight, that we have forsaken our manliness to the extent that we have begun to glorify our defeats and humiliations.

 We should bring to life the dream of Bharat Mata reinstated in her pristine undivided form.

Bunch Of Thoughts: The Nation and its Problem - IX -1

                                                            Our Motherland

Theme: It's Bristishers propaganda that Bharat never existed. From thousands of years it has been mentioned in various Ved, Puranas about this motherland.


Detailed Explanation:

   In our cultural tradition, the respectful way of calling a woman is by her child’s name. Bharata was well known and this land was called as his mother, Bharat, the mother of all Hindus.Some persons says that Bharat was never there. This land was divided, sub-divided. It was Britisher, who to achieve his ulterior imperialistic motives, set afloat all such false notions so that our people loose the sense of patriotism and duty towards our motherland. Long ago our forefathers sang:

(The land to the north of the oceans and south of the Himalayas is called Bharatavarsha, and Bharatis are her children.)

Kalidasa, our great national poet, has described the Himalayas as:

(At the North is the divine Himalayas, the King of mountains, stretching its arms to the ocean on the east and west and standing as the measuring rod of the earth.)

Chanakya, who has been held an authority on our political science, has stated:

(To the north of the oceans up to the Himalayas, the country is 1000 yojanas in length.)

That only means, the poet Kalidasa’s description tallies with the statesman Chanakya’s statement in giving us a fairly correct picture of the vastness of our motherland.It is mentioned in our Puranas:

Afghanistan was our ancient Upaganasthan. Shalya of the Mahabharata came from there. The modern Kabul and Kandahar were Gandhar from where Kaurava’s mother Gandhari came. Even Iran was originally Aryan. Its previous king Reza Shah Pehlavi was guided more by Aryan values than by Islam. Zend Avesta, the holy scripture of Parsis, is mostly Atharva Veda. Coming to the east, Burma is our ancient Brahmadesha. The Mahabharata refers to Iraavat, the modern Irrawady valley, as being involved in that great war. It also refers to Assam as Pragjyotisha since the sun first rises there. In the South, Lanka has had the closest links and was never considered as anything different from the mainland.

It was this picture of our motherland with the Himalayas dipping its arms in the two seas, at Aryan (Iran) in the West and at Sringapur (Singapore) in the East, with Sri Lanka (Ceylon) as a lotus petal offered at her sacred feet by the Southern Ocean, that was constantly kept radiant in people’s mind for so many thousands of years.

All our important religious ceremonies start with bhoomi-poojan-worship of earth. There is a custom that as soon as a Hindu wakes up in the morning, he begs forgiveness of the Mother Earth because he cannot help touching Her with his feet throughout the day.

(O Mother, the Divine Consort of Almighty, with ocean as Thy embroidery and mountains as Thy breasts, forgive me for touching Thee with my feet.)

Bunch Of Thoughts:The Mission - VIII

                                                   Vision Of Our Work

Theme: To avoid slavery or bloody revolution and provide enduring peace and freedom to society, our ancient Hindu thought and practice had kept economic power away from the hands of the state. Our culture survived because we have entrusted saint and sages as the torch bearer of our ancient culture.

Detailed Explanation:

People want quick result and short cuts to success. This mentality has entered every sphere of our National life. For quick success, a person is ready to descend to any level. Many people wonder are there short cuts in sangh works also. They are of the opinion that with vast political power face of the country can be changed and mould the coming generation through education. We can see example all over the World were a Nation is dependent on its political master. In Persia the emperor was supreme head and controlled all aspect of people’s life including their religion. But the empire crumbled at the very first shock from Arab invasion. The same fate overtook the empires of Rome and Greece.

However, in case of our Nation the situation is totally different. For centuries continuous invasion happened from the most barbaric races. The situation was so dark that during Aurangzeb rule, the great martial saint Samartha Ramadas said that an Incarnation of the Almighty alone could save the Hindu society from total annihilation. Same British tried, even today there are many adharmic elements are having their heyday but our society survived. Our glorious tradition continues. It is clear the basis of our National existence was never any political power. It is saints and sages who contributed to this. They presented the Dharmasatta. The great saviour Sri Rama was moulded and guided by sages like Vishwamitra, Vasistha and Agastya. After Buddha his followers invited and helped foreign aggressors. Saint Sri Shankaracharya roamed on foot from one end of the country to another end. The true national consciousness and selfless service that they roused, helped society to find its feet once again and throw out the treacherous elements.

 Even during the days of Muslim domination great saints and sanyasins rose to continue that tradition. All those stalwarts – Chaitanya, Tulsidas, Surdas, Jnaneshwar, Ramananda, Tukaram, Ramanuja, Madhwa, Nanak and a host of such others – flooded the land from one end to the other with religious devotion. We see the same spiritual content present in the national resurgence against the foreign yoke of the British also. The spiritual sun broke forth in all its glory in Bengal as the Sri Ramakrishna-Vivekananda order, in the Punjab in the form of Swami Dayananda and Ramatirtha, in the South Maharshi Ramana and Yogi Aurobindo – all of whom infused the spiritual content of nationalism in to the people’s mind.

 Today government is trying to centralise all power and authority and secure almost all spheres of society. If the state were thus to dominate the whole range of human activity, the individual will exist only as a slave bereft of all initiative. The state could do good to society only so long as it remained as the upholder of dharma – the higher law of the good life – and not as an end in itself. They, therefore, placed our rulers under the guidance and control of the dharmic authority in the form of selfless and disinterested persons-the sages and seers living in hermitages. Political power shall only reflect the radiance of culture, integrity and power of the organised society that we want to build up-just as the moon reflects the radiance of the sun.

Bunch Of Thoughts:The Mission - VII

                                              Live Positive Dynamic Hinduism

Theme: Live a life of a true positive hindu. We should be hindu by conviction not by raction. We should remember our age old sanskar and practice it in our day to day life.

Detailed Explanation:

 Hindu cannot be defined.In a way, we are ‘anadi’, without a beginning. To define such a people is impossible. Human take birth again and again so long as the least trace of ignorance of his true Divine self remains and in every birth he will be able to make further progress if he makes honest efforts. We believe that all is not over with this present life. Our philosophy says, do your work, do your duty in a selfless spirit.

 On other countries military hero, king is worshiped while in our land great heroes have worshiped the dust of the feet of half naked sanyasins. This is because of our realization that inner being alone is abiding. We should be hindu by conviction not by reaction.We should be keenly conscious in our day-to-day life of our Hindu heritage and should mould every little aspect of our life in keeping with those great traditional values.

 A person can be either Hindu or a communist. He cannot be both. We are organising Hindus not to counter Muslims. Even if muslims were not there, we would have taken up this work if we had found Hindus in the same disorganised, self-forgetful condition as present.

 It is of no use to talk of Hindu Nationhood and Hindu way of life without following those sanskars. There is a story of sadhu.  His mother use to wake up early in the morning and reciting in her melodious voice about the glory of the Divine mother of the universe. Those words he use to listen immediately after he woke up. Which gave him faith and strength to resist all the wordly temptations and devote to the service of the Mother. This is Hindu sanskar.A Hindu is born to be trained in a life-long course of discipline and self-restraint, which purify and strengthen him to reach the Supreme Goal in life.

 In the name of modernisation we have forgot our sanskar. We take pride in it but don't follow anything. We are having living example of Lord Rama, Shivaji, Vivekanand which were not touched by this kind of modernisation.

 Family is the first self-expansion. Then, all the various duties which need to be fulfilled as part of family. Lord Rama fulfilled all his duties whether it is of a son, a brother, husband, student very very well. The the hindu tradition, the shishya looks up to the guru as the very embodiment of knowledge and divinity and behaves towards him in a spirit of humility and devotion.

 Even if, by chance, there is a conflict with our elders on points of ideology, our respectful behaviour towards them need not change. In the Mahabharata war, when Bhishma and Arjuna faced each other, Arjuna directed his first five arrows to the feet of Bhishma. The charioteer of Bhishma was amazed to see Arjuna’s unfailing arrows falling at Bhishma’s feet instead of striking his chest. Bhishma said "My beloved Arjuna is prostrating before me with all his five pranas seeking my blessings".

Let us not forget our old puranic stories. In each stories there lies the touch of our culture.

Bhagawad Gita says:

 Even death while performing one's own dharma brings blessedness, taking to another's dharma is fraught with fearful consiquences.