6_Glorious_Epochs_of_Indian_History

5TH GLORIOUS EPOCH 319
Muslims, when at last he fell into the hands of the Muslim
monarch,was he not locked up in a cage like a wild beast ?
Didn't red-hot iron pikes and pincers pierce his body and pull
out large pieces of his flesh and was he not after so much
torture put to cruel death by the Muslims ?
806. But is any thorough-bred Hindu likely to forget
the gratitude that we all owe to those various Hindu gallant
warriors for their glorious martyrdom in the cause of Hindu­
ism, simply because they were defeated in the end ? It is
this grateful memory of such martyrs that becomes the
perennial source of inspiration for the nation forages after
ages !
807. O You ! Hindu Samrat 'Shree Dharmarakshak !
This martyrdom of yours, too, has become a fresh-water
spring of inspiration for the Hindu nation! It is to atone
for the sin of failing to utter a single grateful word for you,
to preserve some souvenir, some memento of yours, that
the Hindus of your own times or those of the later generations
have committed, and it is again in expiation of the sin of our
Hindu ingratitude towards you that we have most reverently
offered you this separate chapter in this book.
808. Had you but chosen to remain a Muslim Sultan,
you could easily have perpetuated the Sultanate of the whole
of India down to your descendants, generations after
generations, as it happened in the case of the Khiljee or
Slave dynasties after AUauddin or Ghyasuddin. But with
glowing respect and pride for the Hindu religion and the
Hindu nation, you purified the very Muslim Title of Sultan,
turned the Muslim 'Takhta' into a Hindu 'Sinhasan', and
slighting the Muslim Sultanate proclaimed yourself a Hindu
Samrat (Emperor) !
809. After Emperor Prithviraj Chauhan, it was you
alone who made a gallant bid to occupy the imperial throne
of Delhi as a Hindu Emperor ! In spite of your birth in an
humble and miserable Hindu family; in spite of your being
defiled and converted to Islam and made an abject slave by
your Muslim enemies at your tender age, you became the