Names of India
Encyclopedia
Greater India
Greater India is a term that refers to the historical spread of the culture of India beyond the Indian subcontinent...
(the Indian subcontinent
Indian subcontinent
The Indian subcontinent, also Indian Subcontinent, Indo-Pak Subcontinent or South Asian Subcontinent is a region of the Asian continent on the Indian tectonic plate from the Hindu Kush or Hindu Koh, Himalayas and including the Kuen Lun and Karakoram ranges, forming a land mass which extends...
), or to the contemporary Republic of India contained therein.
The term is derived from the name of the Sindhu or Indus River
Indus River
The Indus River is a major river which flows through Pakistan. It also has courses through China and India.Originating in the Tibetan plateau of western China in the vicinity of Lake Mansarovar in Tibet Autonomous Region, the river runs a course through the Ladakh district of Jammu and Kashmir and...
and has been in use in Greek since the time of Herodotus
Herodotus
Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...
(5th century BC), via Old Persian transmission. The term appears in Old English in the 9th century, and again in Modern English
Modern English
Modern English is the form of the English language spoken since the Great Vowel Shift in England, completed in roughly 1550.Despite some differences in vocabulary, texts from the early 17th century, such as the works of William Shakespeare and the King James Bible, are considered to be in Modern...
since the 17th century.
The Republic of India has two principal short names, in both official and popular English usage, each of which is historically significant. All originally designated a single entity comprising all the modern nations of the Indian subcontinent
Indian subcontinent
The Indian subcontinent, also Indian Subcontinent, Indo-Pak Subcontinent or South Asian Subcontinent is a region of the Asian continent on the Indian tectonic plate from the Hindu Kush or Hindu Koh, Himalayas and including the Kuen Lun and Karakoram ranges, forming a land mass which extends...
. These names are India and Bharat. The first Article of the Constitution of India
Constitution of India
The Constitution of India is the supreme law of India. It lays down the framework defining fundamental political principles, establishes the structure, procedures, powers, and duties of government institutions, and sets out fundamental rights, directive principles, and the duties of citizens...
states that "India, that is Bharat, shall be a union of states." Thus, India and Bharat are equally official short names for the Republic of India, Indians commonly refer to their country as Bharat, India depending on the context and language of conversation.
India
The English term is from Greek Ἰνδία (Indía), via Latin India. Indía in ByzantineByzantine
Byzantine usually refers to the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages.Byzantine may also refer to:* A citizen of the Byzantine Empire, or native Greek during the Middle Ages...
(Koine Greek
Koine Greek
Koine Greek is the universal dialect of the Greek language spoken throughout post-Classical antiquity , developing from the Attic dialect, with admixture of elements especially from Ionic....
) ethnography denotes the region beyond the Indus
Indus River
The Indus River is a major river which flows through Pakistan. It also has courses through China and India.Originating in the Tibetan plateau of western China in the vicinity of Lake Mansarovar in Tibet Autonomous Region, the river runs a course through the Ladakh district of Jammu and Kashmir and...
river, since Herodotus
Herodotus
Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...
(5th century BC) , hē Indikē chōrē; "Indian land", , Indos, "an Indian", from Old Persian Hinduš (referring to what is now known as Sindh
Sindh
Sindh historically referred to as Ba'ab-ul-Islam , is one of the four provinces of Pakistan and historically is home to the Sindhi people. It is also locally known as the "Mehran". Though Muslims form the largest religious group in Sindh, a good number of Christians, Zoroastrians and Hindus can...
, and listed as a conquered territory by Darius I
Darius I of Persia
Darius I , also known as Darius the Great, was the third king of kings of the Achaemenid Empire...
in the Persepolis
Persepolis
Perspolis was the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Empire . Persepolis is situated northeast of the modern city of Shiraz in the Fars Province of modern Iran. In contemporary Persian, the site is known as Takht-e Jamshid...
terrace inscription).
The name is derived ultimately from Sindhu, the Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
name of the river, but also meaning "river" generically.
Latin India is used by Lucian
Lucian
Lucian of Samosata was a rhetorician and satirist who wrote in the Greek language. He is noted for his witty and scoffing nature.His ethnicity is disputed and is attributed as Assyrian according to Frye and Parpola, and Syrian according to Joseph....
(2nd century).
The name India was known in Old English
Old English language
Old English or Anglo-Saxon is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in parts of what are now England and southeastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century...
, and was used in King Alfred
Alfred the Great
Alfred the Great was King of Wessex from 871 to 899.Alfred is noted for his defence of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of southern England against the Vikings, becoming the only English monarch still to be accorded the epithet "the Great". Alfred was the first King of the West Saxons to style himself...
's translation of Orosius. In Middle English
Middle English
Middle English is the stage in the history of the English language during the High and Late Middle Ages, or roughly during the four centuries between the late 11th and the late 15th century....
, the name was, under French influence, replaced by Ynde or Inde, which entered Early Modern English
Early Modern English
Early Modern English is the stage of the English language used from about the end of the Middle English period to 1650. Thus, the first edition of the King James Bible and the works of William Shakespeare both belong to the late phase of Early Modern English...
as Indie. The name India then came back to English usage from the 17th century onwards, and may be due to the influence of Latin, or Spanish or Portuguese.
Sanskrit indu "drop (of Soma
Soma
Soma , or Haoma , from Proto-Indo-Iranian *sauma-, was a ritual drink of importance among the early Indo-Iranians, and the subsequent Vedic and greater Persian cultures. It is frequently mentioned in the Rigveda, whose Soma Mandala contains 114 hymns, many praising its energizing qualities...
)", also a term for the Moon
Moon
The Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...
, is unrelated, but has sometimes been erroneously connected, listed by, among others, Colonel James Todd in his Annals of Rajputana. Todd describes ancient India as under control of tribes claiming descent from the Moon, or "Indu" (referring to Chandravanshi Rajputs)
Bhārata
The name Bhārat has been used as a self-ascribed name by people of the Indian SubcontinentIndian subcontinent
The Indian subcontinent, also Indian Subcontinent, Indo-Pak Subcontinent or South Asian Subcontinent is a region of the Asian continent on the Indian tectonic plate from the Hindu Kush or Hindu Koh, Himalayas and including the Kuen Lun and Karakoram ranges, forming a land mass which extends...
and the Republic of India. Bhārat along with India is the official English name of the country, Bhārata is the official Sanskrit name of the country, , and the name is derived from the ancient Indian texts, the Puranas
Puranas
The Puranas are a genre of important Hindu, Jain and Buddhist religious texts, notably consisting of narratives of the history of the universe from creation to destruction, genealogies of kings, heroes, sages, and demigods, and descriptions of Hindu cosmology, philosophy, and geography.Puranas...
, which refers to the land that comprises India as Bharata , and uses this term to distinguish it from other or continents. For example, the Vayu Purana
Vayu Purana
The Vayu Purana is a Shaiva Purana, a Hindu religious text, dedicated to the god Vayu , containing about 24,000 shlokas.-Date:Banabhatta refers to this work in his Kadambari and Harshacharita...
s says he who conquers the whole of Bharata-varsa is celebrated as a samrāt (Vayu Purana 45, 86). However in some puranas, the term 'Bharate' refers to the whole Earth as Emperor Bharata is said to have ruled the whole Earth. Until the death of Maharaja Parikshit, the last formidable emperor of the Kuru dynasty, the known world was known as Bharata varsha.
According to the most popular theory the name Bhārata is the vrddhi
Vrddhi
' is a Sanskrit word meaning "growth" . In Panini's grammar, it is also a technical term for a group of long vowels. In Indo-European linguistics, it has become a term for the lengthened grade of the ablaut vowel gradation peculiar to the Indo-European languages...
of Bharata, a king mentioned in Rigveda
Rigveda
The Rigveda is an ancient Indian sacred collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns...
.
The Sanskrit word bhārata is a vrddhi derivation of bharata, which was originally an epithet of Agni
Agni
Agni is a Hindu deity, one of the most important of the Vedic gods. He is the god of fire and the acceptor of sacrifices. The sacrifices made to Agni go to the deities because Agni is a messenger from and to the other gods...
. The term is a verbal noun of the Sanskrit root bhr-, "to bear / to carry", with a literal meaning of "to be maintained" (of fire
Fire
Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material in the chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction products. Slower oxidative processes like rusting or digestion are not included by this definition....
). The root
Root (linguistics)
The root word is the primary lexical unit of a word, and of a word family , which carries the most significant aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents....
bhr is cognate with the English verb to bear and Latin ferō.
This term also means "one who is engaged in search for knowledge".
According to the Puranas, this country is known as Bharatavasha after the king Bharata Chakravarti. This has been mentioned in Vishnu Purana (2,1,31), Vayu Purana,(33,52), Linga Purana(1,47,23), Brahmanda Purana (14,5,62), Agni Purana ( 107,11-12), Skanda Purana ,Khanda (37,57) and Markandaya Purana (50,41) it is clearly stated that this country is known as Bharata Varsha.
Vishnu Purāna mentions:
- ऋषभो मरुदेव्याश्च ऋषभात भरतो भवेत्
- भरताद भारतं वर्षं, भरतात सुमतिस्त्वभूत्
- Rishabha was born to Marudevi, Bharata was born to Rishabh,
- Bharatvarsha (India) arose from Bharata, and Sumati arose from Bharata
- —Vishnu Purana (2,1,31)
- ततश्च भारतं वर्षमेतल्लोकेषुगीयते
- भरताय यत: पित्रा दत्तं प्रतिष्ठिता वनम (विष्णु पुराण, २,१,३२)
- This country is known as Bharatavarsha since the times the father entrusted the kingdom to the son Bharata and he himself went to the forest for ascetic practices
- —Vishnu Purana (2,1,32)
The Bhāratas
Bharatas
Bhāratas are an Aryan tribe mentioned in the Rigveda, especially in Mandala 3 attributed to the Bharata sage Vishvamitra. In the "river hymn" RV 3.33, the entire Bharata tribe is described as crossing a river. Bharatá is also used as a name of Agni Bhāratas are an Aryan tribe mentioned in the...
were an Aryan
Aryan
Aryan is an English language loanword derived from Sanskrit ārya and denoting variously*In scholarly usage:**Indo-Iranian languages *in dated usage:**the Indo-European languages more generally and their speakers...
tribe mentioned in the Rigveda
Rigveda
The Rigveda is an ancient Indian sacred collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns...
, notably participating in the Battle of the Ten Kings
Battle of the Ten Kings
Battle of the Ten Kings is a battle alluded to in Mandala 7 of the Rigveda , the ancient Indian sacred collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns. It is a battle between Aryans...
.
The realm of Bharata is known as in the Mahabhārata
(the core portion of which is itself known as Bhārata) and later texts. The term varsa means a division of the earth, or a continent. http://webapps.uni-koeln.de/tamil/
A version of the Bagavatha Purana says, the Name Bharatha is after Jata Bharatha who appears in the fifth canto of the Bagavatha.
From: Vishnu Purana (2.3.1)http://www.sub.uni-goettingen.de/ebene_1/fiindolo/gretil/1_sanskr/3_purana/visnup_u.htmhttp://is1.mum.edu/vedicreserve/puranas/vishnu_purana.pdf
- उत्तरं यत्समुद्रस्य हिमाद्रेश्चैव दक्षिणम् ।
- वर्षं तद् भारतं नाम भारती यत्र संततिः ।।
- "The country () that lies north of the oceanSamudraSamudra is a Sanskrit term for "ocean", literally the "gathering together of waters" Samudra is a Sanskrit term for "ocean", literally the "gathering together of waters" Samudra is a Sanskrit term for "ocean", literally the "gathering together of waters" (- meaning "together" and -udra meaning...
and south of the snowy mountains is called Bhāratam; there dwell the descendants of Bharata."
The term in Classical Sanskrit literature
Sanskrit literature
Literature in Sanskrit begins with the Vedas, and continues with the Sanskrit Epics of Iron Age India; the golden age of Classical Sanskrit literature dates to late Antiquity . Literary production saw a late bloom in the 11th century before declining after 1100 AD...
is taken to comprise the territory of Republic of India, Nepal
Nepal
Nepal , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked sovereign state located in South Asia. It is located in the Himalayas and bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India...
and Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
. This corresponds to the approximate extent of the historical Maurya Empire
Maurya Empire
The Maurya Empire was a geographically extensive Iron Age historical power in ancient India, ruled by the Mauryan dynasty from 321 to 185 BC...
under emperors Chandragupta Maurya
Chandragupta Maurya
Chandragupta Maurya , was the founder of the Maurya Empire. Chandragupta succeeded in conquering most of the Indian subcontinent. Chandragupta is considered the first unifier of India and its first genuine emperor...
and Ashoka the Great
Ashoka
Ashok Maurya or Ashoka , popularly known as Ashoka the Great, was an Indian emperor of the Maurya Dynasty who ruled almost all of the Indian subcontinent from ca. 269 BC to 232 BC. One of India's greatest emperors, Ashoka reigned over most of present-day India after a number of military conquests...
(4th to 3rd centuries BC). Later political entities unifying approximately the same region are the Mughal Empire
Mughal Empire
The Mughal Empire , or Mogul Empire in traditional English usage, was an imperial power from the Indian Subcontinent. The Mughal emperors were descendants of the Timurids...
(17th century), the Maratha Empire
Maratha Empire
The Maratha Empire or the Maratha Confederacy was an Indian imperial power that existed from 1674 to 1818. At its peak, the empire covered much of South Asia, encompassing a territory of over 2.8 million km²....
(18th century) , and the British Raj
British Raj
British Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...
(19th to 20th centuries).
From the perspective of the Malay Archipelago
Malay Archipelago
The Malay Archipelago refers to the archipelago between mainland Southeastern Asia and Australia. The name was derived from the anachronistic concept of a Malay race....
, Indian traders were the most common ones coming from "the West", therefore the word was absorbed into the Malay language. In the Malay language
Malay language
Malay is a major language of the Austronesian family. It is the official language of Malaysia , Indonesia , Brunei and Singapore...
, "barat" literally means "west", the cardinal point. The ordinal points of north-west is "barat laut" (literally "west-sea"), and south-west is "barat daya".
For Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
ern traders, particularly Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
s and Turks
Turkish people
Turkish people, also known as the "Turks" , are an ethnic group primarily living in Turkey and in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire where Turkish minorities had been established in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Romania...
, spices were the most common materials coming from the East. Hence, the term "Bharata" was borrowed first into Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
as , meaning "spices;" this migrated into the Turkish
Turkish language
Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
"baharat" with the same meaning.
Hindustan and Hind
The name Hind is derived from the IranianIranian languages
The Iranian languages form a subfamily of the Indo-Iranian languages which in turn is a subgroup of Indo-European language family. They have been and are spoken by Iranian peoples....
equivalent of Indo-Aryan
Indo-Aryan languages
The Indo-Aryan languages constitutes a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages, itself a branch of the Indo-European language family...
Sindh
Sindh
Sindh historically referred to as Ba'ab-ul-Islam , is one of the four provinces of Pakistan and historically is home to the Sindhi people. It is also locally known as the "Mehran". Though Muslims form the largest religious group in Sindh, a good number of Christians, Zoroastrians and Hindus can...
. The Avestan -stān means country or land (cognate to Sanskrit sthāna "place, land").
India was called Hindustān in Persian
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
although the term Hind is in current use. al-Hind is the term in the Arabic language
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
(e.g. in the 11th century Tarikh Al-Hind "history of India"). It also occurs intermittently in usage within India, such as in the phrase Jai Hind.
The terms Hind and Hindustān were current in Persian and Arabic from the 11th century Islamic conquests
Muslim conquest in the Indian subcontinent
Muslim conquest in South Asia mainly took place from the 13th to the 16th centuries, though earlier Muslim conquests made limited inroads into the region, beginning during the period of the ascendancy of the Rajput Kingdoms in North India, from the 7th century onwards.However, the Himalayan...
: the rulers in the Sultanate
Delhi Sultanate
The Delhi Sultanate is a term used to cover five short-lived, Delhi based kingdoms or sultanates, of Turkic origin in medieval India. The sultanates ruled from Delhi between 1206 and 1526, when the last was replaced by the Mughal dynasty...
and Mughal
Mughal Empire
The Mughal Empire , or Mogul Empire in traditional English usage, was an imperial power from the Indian Subcontinent. The Mughal emperors were descendants of the Timurids...
periods called their Indian dominion, centred around Delhi
Delhi
Delhi , officially National Capital Territory of Delhi , is the largest metropolis by area and the second-largest by population in India, next to Mumbai. It is the eighth largest metropolis in the world by population with 16,753,265 inhabitants in the Territory at the 2011 Census...
, Hindustan.
Hindustān, as is the term entered the English language in the 17th century. In the 19th century, the term as used in English referred to the northern region of India between the Indus and Brahmaputra rivers and between the Himalayas
Himalayas
The Himalaya Range or Himalaya Mountains Sanskrit: Devanagari: हिमालय, literally "abode of snow"), usually called the Himalayas or Himalaya for short, is a mountain range in Asia, separating the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau...
and the Vindhyas in particular, hence the term Hindustani
Hindustani language
Hindi-Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language and the lingua franca of North India and Pakistan. It is also known as Hindustani , and historically, as Hindavi or Rekhta...
for the Hindi-Urdu language.
Hindustan was in use synonymously with India during the British Raj
British Raj
British Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...
.
Hind remains in use in Hindi. In contemporary Persian language
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
and Urdu language, the term Hindustan has come to mean the Republic of India. The same is the case with Arabic language
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
, where al-Hind is the name of the Republic of India.
Today, Hindustān does not stand as the official name for India. Although some countries in Middle East (Gulf) still refer to it with one of the old names of India, i.e. Hind or al-Hind.
Yin du
印度 is the Chinese word for India. It sounds similar to Hindu and Sindhu.Tenjiku
TenjikuTenjiku
is the obsolete Japanese word for ancient India. It is used in such works as the Japanese translation of Journey to the West....
(天竺) is the Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
word, which derives from Chinese word Tianzhu
Tianzhu
-Locations in China:*Mount Tianzhu , in Anhui*Tianzhu County, Guizhou , in Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture, Guizhou*Tenzhu Tibetan Autonomous County , or Tianzhu, of Wuwei, Gansu...
(天竺) commonly used in reference to pre-modern India. Tian, the root word for the Japanese kanji
Kanji
Kanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters hanzi that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana , katakana , Indo Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet...
, means "heaven", while, jiku, means: "the center of", or 'primary concentration of'. Therefore the word is known to mean: "the heavenly center of the world" or "the spiritual axis (center)", a reference to the Indian origins of Buddhism
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
.
Some historical definitions
Some historical definitions prior to 1500 are presented below| Year | Name | Source | Definition |
|---|---|---|---|
| c. 486 BCE | Hidush | Naksh-i-Rustam | "Says Darius the King: By the grace of Ormazd these (are) the countries which I have acquired besides Persia. I have established my power over them. They have brought tribute to me. That which has been said to them by me they have done. They have obeyed my law. Medea... Arachotia (Harauvatish), Sattagydia (Thatagush), Gandaria (Gadára), India (Hidush)...." |
| c. 440 BCE | India | Herodotus Herodotus Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a... |
"Eastward of India lies a tract which is entirely sand. Indeed, of all the inhabitants of Asia, concerning whom anything is known, the Indians dwell nearest to the east, and the rising of the Sun." |
| c. 300 BCE | India/Indikē | Megasthenes Megasthenes Megasthenes was a Greek ethnographer in the Hellenistic period, author of the work Indica.He was born in Asia Minor and became an ambassador of Seleucus I of Syria possibly to Chandragupta Maurya in Pataliputra, India. However the exact date of his embassy is uncertain... |
"India then being four-sided in plan, the side which looks to the Orient and that to the South, the Great Sea compasseth; that towards the Arctic is divided by the mountain chain of Hēmōdus from Scythia Scythia In antiquity, Scythian or Scyths were terms used by the Greeks to refer to certain Iranian groups of horse-riding nomadic pastoralists who dwelt on the Pontic-Caspian steppe... , inhabited by that tribe of Scythians who are called Sakai; and on the fourth side, turned towards the West, the Indus marks the boundary, the biggest or nearly so of all rivers after the Nile Nile The Nile is a major north-flowing river in North Africa, generally regarded as the longest river in the world. It is long. It runs through the ten countries of Sudan, South Sudan, Burundi, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Egypt.The Nile has two major... ." |
| c. 140. | Indoi, Indou | Arrian Arrian Lucius Flavius Arrianus 'Xenophon , known in English as Arrian , and Arrian of Nicomedia, was a Roman historian, public servant, a military commander and a philosopher of the 2nd-century Roman period... |
"The boundary of the land of India towards the north is Mount Taurus. It is not still called Taurus in this land; but Taurus begins from the sea over against Pamphylia and Lycia and Cilicia; and reaches as far as the Eastern Ocean, running right across Asia. But the mountain has different names in different places; in one, Parapamisus, in another Hemodus; elsewhere it is called Imaon, and perhaps has all sorts of other names; but the Macedonians who fought with Alexander called it Caucasus; another Caucasus, that is, not the Scythian; so that the story ran that Alexander came even to the far side of the Caucasus. The western part of India is bounded by the river Indus right down to the ocean, where the river runs out by two mouths, not joined together as are the five mouths of the Ister; but like those of the Nile, by which the Egyptian delta is formed; thus also the Indian delta is formed by the river Indus, not less than the Egyptian; and this in the Indian tongue is called Pattala. Towards the south this ocean bounds the land of India, and eastward the sea itself is the boundary. The southern part near Pattala and the mouths of the Indus were surveyed by Alexander and Macedonians, and many Greeks; as for the eastern part, Alexander did not traverse this beyond the river Hyphasis. A few historians have described the parts which are this side of the Ganges and where are the mouths of the Ganges and the city of Palimbothra, the greatest Indian city on the Ganges. (...) The Indian rivers are greater than any others in Asia; greatest are the Ganges and the Indus, whence the land gets its name; each of these is greater than the Nile of Egypt and the Scythian Ister, even were these put together; my own idea is that even the Acesines is greater than the Ister and the Nile, where the Acesines having taken in the Hydaspes, Hydraotes, and Hyphasis, runs into the Indus, so that its breadth there becomes thirty stades. Possibly also other greater rivers run through the land of India." |
| First century CE to 400 CE | Bhāratavarṣa (realm of Bhārata) | Viṣṇu Purāṇa (विष्णु पुराण) Vishnu Purana The Vishnu Purana is a religious Hindu text and one of the eighteen Mahapuranas. It is considered one of the most important Puranas and has been given the name Puranaratna... |
"उत्तरं यत्समुद्रस्य हिमाद्रेश्चैव दक्षिणम् । वर्षं तद् भारतं नाम भारती यत्र संततिः ।।" i.e. "The country (varṣam) that lies north of the ocean and south of the snowy mountains is called Bhāratam; there dwell the descendants of Bharata." |
| c. 590. | Hind | Istakhri | "As for the land of the Hind it is bounded on the East by the Persian Sea (i.e. the Indian Ocean Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by the Indian Subcontinent and Arabian Peninsula ; on the west by eastern Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and... ), on the W. and S. by the countries of Islām, and on the N. by the Chinese Empire. . . . The length of the land of the Hind Hind The word Hind may refer to:* A female red deer* al-Hind , also Hind - The people of India or Indian subcontinent... from the government of Mokrān Makran The present day Makran is a semi-desert coastal strip in the south of Sindh, Balochistan, in Iran and Pakistan, along the coast of the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman. The present day Makran derived its name from Maka, a satrap of Achaemenid Empire.... , the country of Mansūra Mansura (Brahmanabad) Mansura was the historic capital of the Arab empire in Sindh. The city now lies in Western Pakistan and is usually known as Brahmanabad in Sindh, situated about south-east of Shahdadpur railway station, and north-east of Hyderabad.-History:... and Bodha and the rest of Sind, till thou comest to Kannūj Kannauj Kannauj , also spelt Kanauj, is a city, administrative headquarters and a municipal board or Nagar Palika Parishad in Kannauj district in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. The city's name is traditionally derived from the term Kanyakubja . Kannauj is an ancient city, in earlier times the capital... and thence passest on to Tibet Tibet Tibet is a plateau region in Asia, north-east of the Himalayas. It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people as well as some other ethnic groups such as Monpas, Qiang, and Lhobas, and is now also inhabited by considerable numbers of Han and Hui people... , is about 4 months, and its breadth from the Indian Ocean to the country of Kannūj about three months." |
| c. 650 | Five Indies | Xuanzang Xuanzang Xuanzang was a famous Chinese Buddhist monk, scholar, traveler, and translator who described the interaction between China and India in the early Tang period... |
"The circumference of 五印 (Modern Chinese: Wǔ Yìn, the Five Indies) is about 90,000 li Li (unit) The li is a traditional Chinese unit of distance, which has varied considerably over time but now has a standardized length of 500 meters or half a kilometer... ; on three sides it is bounded by a great sea; on the north it is backed by snowy mountains. It is wide at the north and narrow at the south; its figure is that of a half-moon." |
| c. 944. | Hind, Sind | Masudi | "For the nonce let us confine ourselves to summary notices concerning the kings of Sind and Hind. The language of Sind is different from that of Hind. . . ." |
| c. 1020 | Hind | Al-Birūnī | "Hind is surrounded on the East by Chín and Máchín, on the West by Sind and Kábul, and on the South by the Sea."- |
| 1205 | Hind | Hasan Nizāmī | "The whole country of Hind, from Peshawar Peshawar Peshawar is the capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and the administrative center and central economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan.... in the north, to the Indian Ocean in the south; from Sehwan (on the west bank of the Indus) to the mountains on the east dividing from China." |
| 1298 | India the Greater India the Minor Middle India |
Marco Polo Marco Polo Marco Polo was a Venetian merchant traveler from the Venetian Republic whose travels are recorded in Il Milione, a book which did much to introduce Europeans to Central Asia and China. He learned about trading whilst his father and uncle, Niccolò and Maffeo, travelled through Asia and apparently... |
"India the Greater is that which extends from Maabar to Kesmacoran (i.e. from Coromandel Coromandel Coast The Coromandel Coast is the name given to the southeastern coast of the Indian Subcontinent between Cape Comorin and False Divi Point... to Mekran Makran The present day Makran is a semi-desert coastal strip in the south of Sindh, Balochistan, in Iran and Pakistan, along the coast of the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman. The present day Makran derived its name from Maka, a satrap of Achaemenid Empire.... ), and it contains 13 great kingdoms. . . . India the Lesser extends from the Province of Champa to Mutfili (i.e. from Cochin-China China Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture... to the Kistna Delta), and contains 8 great Kingdoms. . . . Abash (Abyssinia Ethiopia Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2... ) is a very great province, and you must know that it constitutes the Middle India." |
| c. 1328. | India | Friar Jordanus | "What shall I say? The great- ness of this India is beyond description. But let this much suffice concerning India the Greater and the Less. Of India Tertia I will say this, that I have not indeed seen its many marvels, not having been there. . . ." |
| 1404 | India Minor | Clavijo | "And this same Thursday that the said Ambassadors arrived at this great River (the Oxus) they crossed to the other side. And the same day . . . came in the evening to a great city which is called Tenmit (Termez Termez Termez is a city in southern Uzbekistan near the border with Afghanistan.Some link the name of the city to thermos, "hot" in Greek, tracing its name back to Alexander the Great. Others suggest that it came from Sanskrit taramato, meaning "on the river bank". It is the hottest point of Uzbekistan... ), and this used to belong to India Minor, but now belongs to the empire of Samarkand, having been conquered by Tamurbec." |
Official names
The official names as set down in article 1 of the Indian constitution are:- EnglishEnglish languageEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
: India; Bharat - HindiHindiStandard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...
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See also
- Official names of IndiaOfficial names of IndiaThe following table lists the names of the Republic of India in each of the twenty-three constitutionally recognised languages listed in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India...
- History of IndiaHistory of IndiaThe history of India begins with evidence of human activity of Homo sapiens as long as 75,000 years ago, or with earlier hominids including Homo erectus from about 500,000 years ago. The Indus Valley Civilization, which spread and flourished in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent from...
- Origin of the names of Indian states
- ĀryavartaAryavartaĀryāvarta is a name for Northern India in classical Sanskrit literature. The Manu Smriti gives the name to "the tract between the Himalaya and the Vindhya ranges, from the eastern to the Western Sea"....