6_Glorious_Epochs_of_Indian_History

•5TH GLORIOUS EPOCH 409
this restricted life of mine at Ratnagiri, I decided that!
myself should write a discursive book although without any
help from reference books which would interpret and explain
the unrivalled valour of the post-Shivaji Maharashtra and
the freedom of the Hindu nation that it effected by destroy­
ing the Muslim domination. Why, before the end of February
1926 I completed the writing of that book.
HINDU PATPADSHAHI
1004. The very name of that book I chose as 'Hindu
Patpadshahi' rather than merely the history of the Marathas.
For, in my opinion, the Marathas in general did not fight
•only for Maharashtra, nor for their household, land or their
fields. Their sole objective was to liberate Hindu religion
and Hindu nation—of which Maharashtra was known to them
to be only a part—from the yoke of Muslim domination and
to establish all over India a sovereign Hindu power*. The
inner urge of the new resurgent Maharashtra was to dethrone
the Muslim imperial power at Delhi', and to hoist in its place
the Hindu imperial standard. The anguish that rankled in
the hearts of the Hindus and that found expression in Shree
Ramdas's famous couplet—
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('Nowhere on the face of this whole earth is there left any
Hindu')
was mainly responsible for all the future glory of the
Marathas ! The heartache of the Hindus as expressed by
Shree Ramdas
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(At present the revolt of the Muslims has come to stay, and
no daring Hindu has been left; no one is able to curb and
subdue this long standing evil)
set aglow the whole of Maharashtra. TheMaharashtrian move­
ments in that century spread far and wide throughout India,
the invasions and campaigns, the battles and pursuits and