India, the names of
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The official name of India
See India: The Land and the People, especially for the debate on the word Hindustan
India, in the official languages of India
Assamese ভাৰত Bhārôt
Bengali ভারত Bhārot
Bodo भारत Bhārôt
Dogri भारत Bhārat
Gujarati ભારત Bhārat
Hindi भारत Bhārat
Kannada ಭಾರತ Bhārata
Kashmiri ہِندوستان Hindōstān
Konkani भारत Bharot
Maithili भारत Bhārat
Malayalam ഭാരതം Bhāratam
Marathi भारत Bhārat
Meitei (Manipuri) (Bengali Assamese ভারত Bharôt) ( Meitei script ꯏꯟꯗꯤꯌꯥ[D] Indiyā)
Nepali भारत Bhārat
Odia ଭାରତ Bhārata
Punjabi ਭਾਰਤ Bhārat
Sanskrit भारतम् Bhāratam
Santali (Ol Chiki ᱥᱤᱧᱚᱛ[E] Siñôt) (Devanagari भारोत Bharot)
Sindhi भारत Bhārat/ ڀارت
Tamil இந்தியா (official), பாரதம்[F][8] Intiyā, Pāratam
Telugu భారతదేశం Bhārata
Urdu ہندوستان Hindustān
The historical names of India
One of the oldest names used in association with the Indian subcontinent was Meluha that was mentioned in the texts of ancient Mesopotamia in the third millennium BCE, to refer to the Indus Valley Civilisation.
The earliest recorded name that continues to be debated is believed to be ‘Bharat’, ‘Bharata’, or ‘Bharatvarsha’, that is also one of the two names prescribed by the Indian constitution. Its roots are traced to Puranic literature, and to the Hindu epic, Mahabharata
Bharata, writes social scientist Catherine Clémentin-Ojha,, refers to the “supraregional and subcontinental territory where the Brahmanical system of society prevails”. Geographically, the Puranas mentioned Bharata to be situated between the ‘sea in the south and the abode of snow in the north’. Its shape and dimensions varied across different ancient texts. In that sense, …Yet, on another note, Bharata is also believed to be the mythical founder of the race.
‘Aryavarta’, as mentioned in the Manusmriti, referred to the land occupied by the Indo-Aryans in the space between the Himalayas in the north and the Vindhya mountain ranges in the south.
The name ‘Jambudvipa’ or the ‘land of the Jamun trees’ has also appeared in several Vedic texts, and is still used in a few Southeast Asian countries to describe the Indian subcontinent.
Jain literature on the other hand, also lays claim to the name Bharat, but believes that the country was called ‘Nabhivarsa’ before. “King Nabhi was the father of Rishabhanatha (the first tirthankara) and grandfather of Bharata,” writes geographer Anu Kapur in her book, ‘Mapping place names of India’.
The name ‘Hindustan’ was the first instance of a nomenclature having political undertones. It was first used when the Persians occupied the Indus valley in the seventh century BCE. Hindu was the Persianised version of the Sanskrit Sindhu, or the Indus river, and was used to identify the lower Indus basin. From the first century of the Christian era, the Persian suffix, ‘stan’ was applied to form the name ‘Hindustan’.
At the same time, the Greeks who had acquired knowledge of ‘Hind’ from the Persians, transliterated it as ‘Indus’, and by the time the Macedonian ruler Alexander invaded India in the third century BCE, ‘India’ had come to be identified with the region beyond the Indus.
By the 16th century, the name ‘Hindustan’ was used by most South Asians to describe their homeland. Historian Ian J. Barrow in his article, ‘From Hindustan to India: Naming change in changing names’, writes that “in the mid-to-late eighteenth century, Hindustan often referred to the territories of the Mughal emperor, which comprised much of South Asia.” However, from the late 18th century onwards, British maps increasingly began using the term ‘India’, and ‘Hindustan’ started to lose its association with all of South Asia…
The debate to name an Independent India
After the Independence of the country, the Constituent Assembly set up a drafting committee under the chairmanship of B R Ambedkar on August 29, 1947. However, the section, ‘name and territory of the Union’ was taken up for discussion only on September 17, 1949. Right from the moment the first article was read out as ‘India, that is Bharat shall be a union of states’, a division arose among the delegates.
Hari Vishnu Kamath, a member of the Forward Bloc suggested that the first article be replaced as ‘Bharat, or in the English language, India, shall be and such.’ Seth Govind Das, representing the Central Provinces and Berar, on the other hand, proposed: “Bharat known as India also in foreign countries”. Hargovind Pant, who represented the hill districts of the United Provinces, made it clear that the people of Northern India, ‘wanted Bharatvarsha and nothing else’…
It is worth noting though, that ‘Hindustan’ was hardly a contender in the debates. “Hindustan received different treatments during the constituent assembly,” writes Ojha. She adds that “three names had been at the start of the race, but at the end two had been placed on equal footing and one dropped.”…
The word India
The Avestan name for Sindh is Hinduš. It was inscribed by Persian emperor Darius I (550-486 BC) on the Persepolis terrace
The ancient Greeks used the name Ἰνδία (Indía). Herodotus (484 – 425/413 BC) referred to "Indian land" Ἰνδός/ Indos (‘an Indian’), following the Persians.
The Byzantine people used the word Iindía to describe the region beyond the Indus (Ἰνδός) River
Ancient Latin speakers borrowed the name India from the Greeks.
Most European languages—including English—use a variant of the Latin word India.
In English, King Alfred (A.D. 848-899)'s translation of Orosius is the oldest known use of the word India in the English language.
However, English writers who were influenced by the French replaced India with Ynde and Inde. Inde remains the French spelling.
William Shakespeare (1564- 1616) and the first edition of the King James Bible (1611) used the spelling Indie
In the 1600s the Spanish and the Portuguese spelt the word as it is today, India, which was also the official Latin spelling. This could have induced the British to revert to the spelling India.
Summary: The British did not ‘give’ Bharat the name India. They took it from the Latin languages, which in turn took it from the Greeks, who were influenced by the Persians, who preceded the oldest known use of the word India by the British by more than 1300 years
The name India has nothing to do with the colonial era and is the name by which India has been known for the last 2500 years or even more.
The names of India in the languages of the world
Afrikaans Indië
Albanian India
Arabic الهند Al Hind
Belarusian Індыя
Bulgarian Индия
Cambodia. in ancient times knew India by the name "Suvarnabhumi," Sanskrit for the "Land of Gold" or "Golden Land."
Catalan Índia
Czech Indie
Chinese: 印度 (Yìndù) . Ancient name 天竺 (Tiānzhú) The Chinese name "Tiānzhú" means "Heavenly Land",
Danish Indien
Dutch Indië
English India
Estonian India
Farsi هندوستان Hindostan, with an o
Filipino: India
Finnish Intia
French Inde
Galician India
German Indien
Greek Ινδία
Hebrew הודו Hodu is the Biblical Hebrew name for India mentioned in the Book of Esther
Hindi भारत
Hungarian India
Icelandic Indland
Indonesian India Ancient name: Hindia
Irish An India
Italian India
Japanese インド (Indoku) Tenjiku was the ancient Japanese name for India, somewhat similar to the Chinese name. It is said that a merchant-adventurer Tokubei (1612–1692) had a lifelong ambition to visit 'Tenjiku' (the Heavenly Land). He even renamed himself Tenjiku Tokubei out of reverence for India.
Khmer ប្រទេសឥណ្ឌា bratesa Inda
Korean 인도 (Indeo)
Lao ປະເທດອິນເດຍ pathed India
Latvian Indija
Lithuanian Indija
Macedonian Индија
Malay: India
Mandarin 印度
Norwegian India
Polish Indie (Indi)
Portuguese Índia
Romanian India
Russian Индия (Indiya)
Serbian Индија
Slovak India
Slovenian Indija
Spanish India
Southeast Asia (Thailand, Malaysia, Java and Bali) Ancient name: Jambu Dwipa
Swahili Uhindi
Swedish Indien
Tagalog. Filipino Indiya
Thai อินเดีย (Indiya/ In-thi-ya )
Tibet: Ancient names:
i) Gyagar: This is the name that the people of Ladakh use to this day.
ii) བོད་ཡུལ་ (Bod-yul) The Tibetan name "Bod-yul" means "Land of the Bhoṭiya people" who live in the Himalayan area bordering Tibet and Nepal and are found in three states of India – Sikkim, West Bengal and Utarakhand. In Utarakhand, the Bhotia primarily reside in the districts of Pithoragarh, Chamoli, Almorah, Utarkashi and Nainital.
iii) Phagyul: the land of the Aryas i
Turkish Hindistan
Ukrainian Індія
Vietnamese Ấn Độ
Welsh India
