The different names of India Ancient medieval to Modern UPSC

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All names of India

  1. Meluha
  2. Bharat
  3. Aaryavart
  4. Jamun or Jambudweep
  5. Hind
  6. Hindavaan
  7. Sindhustan
  8. Saptasindhu or Haftahindu
  9. Indus
  10. Indo
  11. Sindhu

The name of Bharat has been changing in every era. In 3000 BC, India’s ancient name is found to be Meluha. The word Meluha is believed to be derived from the Dravidian word ‘Mel-Akam’ from South India, Mel-Akam means Highland Country. In the Indus valley civilization era, India’s trade was done with Sumer country, i.e. today’s Iraq.

The trade partner country of Sumer is mentioned as the name called Melusa or Melukhkha. It is believed that Meluha was called Melusa by the Sumerians. Another proof is that the Sumeru people used to import sesame oil from India. In the Sumerian language, sesame is called Ellu, whereas in South India also sesame is called Ellu. The word Meluha may have been formed from Ellu.

Some experts believe that Meluha is derived from the word Malaha, which is said to be the country of sailors. In the Indus valley era, sailors used to fill their boats from here and go for business.

Who named India as Bharat?

According to Hindu mythological texts, the son of King Dushyanta and Queen Shakuntala of Hastinapur, Bharata Chakravarti, became the king. The empire of the great king Bharata was spread far and wide. The country was named Bharatvarsh after him. India is also mentioned in Mahabharata. Bharatvarsh or the Great Bharata Empire included not only modern India but also parts of Russia, Iran, China, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tibet, Bangladesh, Nepal, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan countries.

Aaryavart was also the name of Bharatvarsh

Aaryavart means, where the Aryans live. Aaryavarta is mentioned in the Manusmriti that the states from the coast in the east, to the sea coast in the west, from the Himalayas in the north to the Vindhyachal in the south were called Aaryavart. In Valmiki Ramayana, Shri Ramchandraji has been called ‘Arya’ and ‘Aaryaputra’ in many places. At that time the name of this country was Aaryavarta.

Today’s India was also known as Jamun or Jambudweep

In the Buddha era, the ancient name of Greater India has mentioned as Dweep. The name of Jambudweep dates back to the 3rd century AD in the era of Emperor Ashoka. At that time the region of vast India was called Jambudweep. This name is mentioned in many inscriptions. For example, the Mysorean inscription of the 10th century mentions the name of ancient India as Jambudweep. The word Jambudweep means the land of blackberry trees. An island has two meanings, one is an island, and the other continent.

Since there are many Jamun trees in India and India is surrounded by oceans on three sides. Perhaps that is why India would have been named Jambudweep. Prior to the introduction of the English name “India”, in several South Eastern Asian countries, there is a mention of Jambudweep for India. The mention of this historical name for the Indian subcontinent is still found in Thailand, Malaysia, Java, and Bali.

Who gave the name Hindustan to India?

If we talk about the BC era, the Hindush word existed two thousand years before Christ, during the Akkadian civilization. In 515 BC, the king of Persia Darius I, conquered the Indus valley i.e. India. He used the word Hindush for the lower basin of the river Indus.

But why did India come to be called Hindustan?

When Greek Ambassador Megasthenes came to India during the era of Chandragupta Maurya, then in his book Indica he used words like Hind, Hindavaan. The word in Sanskrit is sthaanam which we called ‘sthaan’ in Hindi, and which means place or stop.

In Persian, a place is pronounced as ‘staan. In the First Century, the word staan was added to Hindu, which means the place of Hindus, from which it got the name Hindustaan.

In 262 AD, an inscription of Sassanid king Shapur I, named Naqsh-e-Rostam, mentioned Hindustan instead of Sindhustan. Another logic is that when Persians came to Indus valley i.e. India, they used to pronounce the sound ‘s’ as ‘h’, and that’s how Sindhu became Hindu.

The famous area of seven rivers of Sindh, named Saptasindhu was called Haftahindu in ancient Persian. They named the people living here as Hindu, and the country of Hindus was thus named Hindustan. In Greek, the Sindhu river is also mentioned as Indus. The developed civilization along the banks of this river was called Indus Valley Civilisation which in Greek was also known as Indo or Indus.

When this word reached the Latin language it changed from Indus to India. In the book Historica by Herodotus, there is a mention of the name Indus for India. The second-century Greek writer, Lucian mentions the name Indus for India in Latin. In old English, King Alfred, in the translation of Paulus Orosius, had used the name India.

At the beginning of the medieval era, when the French people came to India, then they called India as Inde or Yende.  In modern English, the name India was derived from Indi. When Britishers got their East India Company to India, that time India was known as Hindustan. They started calling Bharat as India, in the Latin language.

After independence debates

In the constituent assembly, post-independence, on 17th September 1949, talks started for naming the country. People came up with many suggestions. But after multiple discussions, it was decided that Independent India should have two names. That’s why, today our country is known by two names, India and Bharat.

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