6_Glorious_Epochs_of_Indian_History

5TH GLORIOUS EPOCH 146
books of history for Indian schools the later Muslim invasions
of India follow so thickly the one of Sindh in A.D. 711 by
Mohammed Kasim, and the accounts of the subjugation of
province after province of India are narrated so hastily, as in
one breath, and the whole account is so cursorily given in a
limited space of 20 or 25 pages that a common reader or a
small pupil is quite likely to think that the Hindus offered
practically no resistance worth the name, that the Muslims
were never halted in their advance. After the conquest of
Sindh, the Muslim victors mounted, as it were, a magic horse
and went on conquering the whole of India and never, till
they reached Kanyakumari, did they alight from it. This is
obviously childish !
THE INTERVENING PERIOD
357. To avoid this misconception and to nullify the
injustice done to the Hindu nation, a true historian, whose
avowed duty is to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing
but the truth, should effectively and proportionately describe
the intervals between any two Muslim invasions and the
heroic resistance, successful or otherwise, offered by the
Hindus. After the fall of Sindh in A.D. 711 Hindu Kings
most effectively checked the Muslim advance outside Sindh
for more or less 300 years. But this Hindu heroism quite
easily escapes the notice of the common reader, because in
almost all the text-books of Indian History it is not so
impressively mentioned.
358. It is because we utter the words 'three hundred
years' or three centuries within three seconds, that the
enormous length of this intervening period quite escapes
our notice, unless we are expressly told about it. We should
therefore measure the period in question, by generations
of people. Five generations make up 300 years ! The
British rule over India, for instance seems too lengthy to the
present generation. But measured in centuries it lasted only
for one and a half. Compared with it, the Hindu valour in
arresting the Muslim onslaught within the confines of Sindh