"All I can say at present is that by the time the Islamic sword swept over the South, and the Vijayanagara Empire took shape, the word “Hindu” was no more a hated word for the natives as it was for the foreign invaders... Thus by the middle of the fourteenth century, the word “Hindu” had dropped the derogatory associations imposed on it by the ancient Iranians and the Islamic invaders, and acquired a lot of lustre in the eyes of our own countrymen. Native heroes such as MahãrãNã Kumbhã, and Krishnadevarãya, who defeated the Islamic onslaught, were hailed as Hindu heroes in subsequent centuries. Padmanãbha uses the word “Hindu” for glorification of the Chauhãn harm of Jalor in his epic poem, KãnhaDade Prabandha, which he composed in AD 1455. It will not be long before MahãrãNã Pratãpa SiMha of Mewar becomes renowned as hindu-kula-kamala-divãkara, the Sun which brings bloom to the lotus that is the Hindu nation. Chhatrapati Shivãji, who turned back the tide of Islamic invasion and inaugurated the war of liberation from Islamic imperialism, will be hailed all over Bhãratavaršã as the saviour of Hindu Dharma and protector of its significant symbols - gaubrãhmaNa, šikhã-sûtra, devamûrti-devãlaya, and so on. So also Guru Gobind Singh, and Mahãrãjã Chhatrasãl."