India, That Is Bharat

Class 06 Social Science

Today, the India we know is a modern nation, with defined borders, defined states and a known population. However, it was very different 500 years ago, 2,000 years ago or even 5,000 years ago.

This region of the world, which we often call the ‘Indian Subcontinent’, has had many different names and shifting boundaries.

How Indians Named India

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’, that is, the ‘land of the seven rivers’. The word ‘Sindhava’ comes from ‘Sindhu’, which refers to the Indus River, or at times to a river in general.

Moving on in time, we see names for other parts of India appear in the literature. The Mahābhārata is one of India’s most famous texts. It lists many regions, such as Kāshmīra (more or less today’s Kashmir), Kurukṣhetra (parts of Haryana today), Vanga (parts of Bengal), Prāgjyotiṣha (roughly today’s Assam), Kaccha (today’s Kutch), Kerala (more or less today’s Kerala), and so on.

The Mahābhārata uses the terms ‘Bhāratavarṣha’ and ‘Jambudvīpa’, and scholars generally agree that this long poem was written from a few centuries BCE onward. The first term, ‘Bhāratavarṣha’, clearly extends to the entire Subcontinent, and the text includes the names of numerous rivers and peoples. ‘Bhāratavarṣha’ means ‘the country of the Bharatas’. ‘Bharata’ is a name that first appears in the Ṛig Veda, where it refers to one of the main Vedic groups of people. In later literature, several kings named ‘Bharata’ are mentioned.

The second term, ‘Jambudvīpa’, means ‘the island of the fruit of the jamun tree’. This is indeed a common tree native to India, also called ‘jambul tree’, ‘Malabar plum tree’, etc. ‘Jambudvīpa’ came to mean the Indian Subcontinent.

A few centuries later, ‘Bhārata’ became the name generally used for the Indian Subcontinent. This name, ‘Bhārata’ remains in use even today. In north India, it is generally written as ‘Bharat’, while in south India, it is often ‘Bharatam’.

How Foreigners Named India

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, which was earlier called ‘Sindhu’. In their earliest records and stone inscriptions, the Persians referred to India as ‘Hind’, ‘Hidu’ or ‘Hindu’, which are adaptations in their language of ‘Sindhu’.

Based on these Persian sources, the ancient Greeks named the region ‘Indoi’ or ‘Indike’. They dropped the initial letter ‘h’ of ‘Hindu’ because this letter did not exist in their Greek language. The ancient Chinese also interacted with India. In several texts, they refer to India as ‘Yintu’ or ‘Yindu’. This word also originally comes from ‘Sindhu’.