India, That Is Bharat
- How do we define India?
- What were the ancient names for India?
People who live in a particular place.
The large region of South Asia bounded by the Himalayas in the north and the seas on the other sides — today it includes India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and parts of Afghanistan.
In the course of history, India has been called by many names — both by its own inhabitants and by visitors from outside. Let us first look at the names Indians themselves gave to their land.
Sapta Sindhava — the land of seven rivers
The Ṛig Veda is India’s most ancient text — it is several thousand years old. It gives the northwest region of the Subcontinent the name ‘Sapta Sindhava’, meaning the ‘land of the seven rivers’. The word ‘Sindhava’ comes from ‘Sindhu’, which refers to the Indus River, or sometimes to a river in general. Remember this word ‘Sindhu’ — almost every foreign name for India grew out of it.
Regions named in the Mahābhārata
Moving forward in time, names for other parts of India appear in literature. The Mahābhārata — one of India’s most famous texts — lists many regions, such as Kāshmīra (roughly today’s Kashmir), Kurukṣhetra (parts of Haryana), Vanga (parts of Bengal), Prāgjyotiṣha (roughly Assam), Kaccha (today’s Kutch), and Kerala (more or less today’s Kerala), and many more.
A name for the whole Subcontinent: Bhāratavarṣha & Jambudvīpa
When do we first find a name for the entire Subcontinent? The Mahābhārata uses two terms — ‘Bhāratavarṣha’ and ‘Jambudvīpa’ — and scholars agree this long poem was written from a few centuries BCE onward.
- Bhāratavarṣha means ‘the country of the Bharatas’. ‘Bharata’ first appears in the Ṛig Veda as one of the main Vedic groups of people; later, several kings named ‘Bharata’ are mentioned.
- Jambudvīpa means ‘the island of the fruit of the jamun tree’ (the jambul / Malabar plum tree, native to India). It came to mean the whole Indian Subcontinent.
We get a strong clue from the emperor Aśhoka (around 250 BCE), who left many inscriptions. In one, he used the name ‘Jambudvīpa’ to describe the whole of India — which at that time included today’s Bangladesh, Pakistan, and parts of Afghanistan.
A few centuries later, ‘Bhārata’ became the name generally used for the Subcontinent. The ancient text Viṣhṇu Purāṇa describes it beautifully:
This name ‘Bhārata’ is still in use today. In north India it is generally written ‘Bharat’, and in south India it is often ‘Bharatam’.
Different parts of the country adopted a similar definition. A poem of ancient Tamil literature, about 2,000 years old, praises a king known “from [Cape] Kumari in the south, from the great mountain in the north, from the oceans on the east and on the west…” The ‘great mountain in the north’ is the Himalayas, and ‘Cape Kumari’ is Kanyakumari at India’s southern tip. Clearly, ancient Indians knew their geography very well!
‘The country of the Bharatas’ — an ancient name for the entire Indian Subcontinent, from which the modern name Bhārat comes.
‘The island of the jamun-fruit tree’ — another ancient name for the whole Subcontinent, used by Emperor Aśhoka in his inscriptions.
A document that spells out the basic principles and laws of a nation. The Indian Constitution came into force in 1950.
Now let us look at the names given to India by people from outside the Subcontinent. Almost all of these grew from one single word you already know — ‘Sindhu’, the Indus River.
The Persians — Hind, Hidu, Hindu
The first foreigners to mention India were the Persians, the ancient inhabitants of Iran. In the 6th century BCE, a Persian emperor launched a military campaign and gained control of the region of the Indus River (earlier called ‘Sindhu’). In their earliest records and stone inscriptions, the Persians referred to India as ‘Hind’, ‘Hidu’ or ‘Hindu’ — their language’s adaptations of ‘Sindhu’.
The Greeks — Indoi, Indike
Based on these Persian sources, the ancient Greeks named the region ‘Indoi’ or ‘Indike’. They dropped the initial letter ‘h’ of ‘Hindu’ because that sound did not exist in the Greek language. From ‘Indoi’ and the later Latin ‘India’, we finally get the English name ‘India’.
The Chinese — Yintu, Yindu, Tianzhu
The ancient Chinese also interacted with India. In several texts they call India ‘Yintu’ or ‘Yindu’ — again coming from ‘Sindhu’:
Another Chinese word derived from ‘Sindhu’ was ‘Tianzhu’ — but this could also be read as ‘heavenly master’, reflecting the deep respect the ancient Chinese had for India as the land of the Buddha.
Hindustān
You are probably familiar with the more recent term ‘Hindustān’ — but did you know it was first used in a Persian inscription about 1,800 years ago? Later, ‘Hindustān’ became the term used by most invaders of India to describe the Subcontinent.
All the names together
Almost every name for India, from every language, flows from that one root — Sindhu. Here is the completed table:
| Language / People | Name for India |
|---|---|
| Persian | Hind / Hidu / Hindu (and later Hindustān) |
| Greek | Indoi / Indike |
| Latin | India |
| Chinese | Yintu / Yindu / Tianzhu |
| Arabic & Persian | Hindustān |
| English | India |
| French | Inde |
All foreign names — Hindu, Indoi, India, Yindu, Hindustān, Inde — ultimately come from ‘Sindhu’, the name of the Indus River. Indians’ own names (Bhārata, Jambudvīpa) came from within.
- India is an ancient land that has had many names through its history.
- Names given by India’s own inhabitants include Jambudvīpa and Bhārata. ‘Bhārata’ became widespread and is the name of India in most Indian languages today.
- Foreign visitors and invaders mostly adopted names derived from the Sindhu (Indus) River — giving ‘Hindu’, ‘Indoi’, and eventually ‘India’.
- The natural boundaries — the Himalayas in the north and the seas on the other sides — gave the Subcontinent its shape and identity.
❓ Questions, Activities and Projects — all solved
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Sri Aurobindo means that, even in very ancient times, India developed a deep spiritual and cultural unity. Although the land was vast — stretching “between the Himalayas and the two seas” — and its people were diverse, they shared common ideas, texts, values and traditions. This shared culture bound the whole Subcontinent together and became “the very stuff of life” for its people, long before India became a modern nation with fixed borders.Show Answer
(a) The Ṛig Veda describes the entire geography of India. → FALSE. It names only the northwest region, ‘Sapta Sindhava’ (land of seven rivers).(b) The Viṣhṇu Purāṇa describes the entire Subcontinent. → TRUE. It defines Bhārata as the land north of the ocean and south of the snowy mountains — the whole Subcontinent.
(c) In Aśhoka’s time, ‘Jambudvīpa’ included today’s India, parts of Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan. → TRUE.
(d) The Mahābhārata lists many regions, including Kashmir, Kutch and Kerala. → TRUE. (Kāshmīra, Kaccha and Kerala.)
(e) The term ‘Hindustān’ first appeared in a Greek inscription more than 2,000 years ago. → FALSE. It first appeared in a Persian inscription about 1,800 years ago.
(f) In ancient Persian, the word ‘Hindu’ refers to the Hindu religion. → FALSE. It was a purely geographical term for the land around the Sindhu River.
(g) ‘Bhārata’ is a name given to India by foreign travellers. → FALSE. ‘Bhārata’ was given by Indians themselves; it appears first in the Ṛig Veda.
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This is an open, imaginative question — any thoughtful answer is correct. A good response gives a name and a reason rooted in the chapter. For example: “I would call it Sapta-Sindhava-Bhārata, joining the ‘land of seven rivers’ with ‘Bhārata’, because our land is defined both by its great rivers that give us water and by the shared culture of the Bharata people.” Or a name based on a natural feature — the Himalayas, the rivers, or the two seas.Show Answer
Ancient travellers came to India for many reasons:• Trade — for spices, cotton, gems and other valuable goods.
• Knowledge and learning — to study at famous centres and meet scholars.
• Religion and pilgrimage — like Xuanzang, to collect Buddhist texts and visit sacred sites (India as the land of the Buddha).
• Conquest / power — invaders came to gain control of land and wealth.
• Curiosity and exploration — to see new lands, peoples and cultures.
- ‘Hindu’ in ancient Persian: it meant a place (land of the Sindhu), NOT the religion. Never write “religion” here.
- Hindustān’s origin: first in a Persian inscription (~1,800 years ago), NOT Greek.
- Who named what: Bhārata & Jambudvīpa = Indians’ own names. Hindu, Indoi, India, Yindu = foreign names from ‘Sindhu’. Don’t swap them.
- Ṛig Veda vs Viṣhṇu Purāṇa: Ṛig Veda names only the northwest (Sapta Sindhava); the Viṣhṇu Purāṇa describes the whole Subcontinent (Bhārata).
- Spelling: write Bhāratavarṣha, Jambudvīpa, Sapta Sindhava carefully — spelling counts in fill-in-the-blanks.
- Sapta Sindhava (Ṛig Veda) = land of seven rivers, only the northwest.
- Bhāratavarṣha = country of the Bharatas → modern Bhārat.
- Jambudvīpa = island of the jamun tree; used by Aśhoka (~250 BCE) for all of India.
- Viṣhṇu Purāṇa: “north of the ocean, south of the snowy mountains… called Bhārata.”
- Foreign names all from Sindhu: Persian Hind/Hindu → Greek Indoi → Latin/English India; Chinese Yindu & Tianzhu.
- Hindustān = first in a Persian inscription ~1,800 years ago.
- Constitution: “India, that is Bharat” (Hindi: Bhārat arthāth India).
- Natural boundaries: Himalayas (north) + seas (Arabian Sea, Bay of Bengal, Indian Ocean).