Why is this “History of India” and not “History of Bhaarat” or “History of Hindustan”? While “Hindustan” has a strong, although misplaced, religious connotation; “Bhaarat” has certain mythical connotation to it. Since we will be talking about history and not mythology…well mostly…therefore I would like to avoid “Bhaarat”.
The word “India” comes from the name of great river Sindhu. Persians and Greeks, the first people to write about the land beyond Sindhu river, could not pronounce “S” in Sindhu. So, they continued calling it “Indu”. Much later, Muslim invaders from beyond Afganistan called people living beyond the Sindhu river as “Hindu”…and thus the land they occupied became “Hindustan”. So, as you can see, “Hindu” or “Hindustan” has no direct religious connotation, but merely a geographical one. It simply means, land beyond the Sindhu river and people inhabiting that land. Coincidently, most of these inhabitants also practiced Vedic religion….which is used interchangeably as Hindu religion. In the political landscape of today, the country known as “Republic of India” is a subset of this geographical region beyond the Sindhu river. Although, backdrop of “History of India” would be mostly set in this country, “History of India” would go beyond today’s political borders and will attempt to elaborate history of a south Asian sub-continent that stretches from the borders of today’s Afganistan in the west to Bangladesh in the east, and Himalayan mountain ranges in the north to the Indian ocean on the south.
Now that we defined geographical boundaries of this discourse, let’s define the era under consideration as well. We will start the journey from the birth of the sub-continent and continue till the time when the “Republic of India” was born.
The word “India” comes from the name of great river Sindhu. Persians and Greeks, the first people to write about the land beyond Sindhu river, could not pronounce “S” in Sindhu. So, they continued calling it “Indu”. Much later, Muslim invaders from beyond Afganistan called people living beyond the Sindhu river as “Hindu”…and thus the land they occupied became “Hindustan”. So, as you can see, “Hindu” or “Hindustan” has no direct religious connotation, but merely a geographical one. It simply means, land beyond the Sindhu river and people inhabiting that land. Coincidently, most of these inhabitants also practiced Vedic religion….which is used interchangeably as Hindu religion. In the political landscape of today, the country known as “Republic of India” is a subset of this geographical region beyond the Sindhu river. Although, backdrop of “History of India” would be mostly set in this country, “History of India” would go beyond today’s political borders and will attempt to elaborate history of a south Asian sub-continent that stretches from the borders of today’s Afganistan in the west to Bangladesh in the east, and Himalayan mountain ranges in the north to the Indian ocean on the south.
Now that we defined geographical boundaries of this discourse, let’s define the era under consideration as well. We will start the journey from the birth of the sub-continent and continue till the time when the “Republic of India” was born.
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