India Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! == Etymology == {{Main|Names for India}} According to the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'' (third edition 2009), the name "India" is derived from the [[Classical Latin]] ''India'', a reference to [[South Asia]] and an uncertain region to its east. In turn the name "India" derived successively from [[Hellenistic Greek]] ''India'' ('' Ἰνδία''), [[ancient Greek]] ''Indos'' ('' Ἰνδός''), [[Old Persian]] ''[[Hindush]]'' (an eastern province of the [[Achaemenid Empire]]), and ultimately its [[cognate]], the [[Sanskrit]] ''Sindhu'', or "river", specifically the [[Indus River]] and, by implication, its well-settled southern basin.<ref>{{Citation |title=India (noun) |url=https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/94384#eid677811 |work=[[Oxford English Dictionary]] |year=2009 |edition=3rd}} (subscription required)</ref>{{sfn|Thieme|1970|pp=447–450}} The [[Ancient Greece|ancient Greeks]] referred to the Indians as ''Indoi'' (''{{ISO 639-2|GRC|Ἰνδοί}}''), which translates as "The people of the Indus".{{sfn|Kuiper|2010|p = 86}} The term ''[[Names for India#Bhārata|Bharat]]'' ({{transliteration|hi|ISO|Bhārat}}; {{IPA-hns|ˈbʱaːɾət|pron|hi-Bharat.ogg}}), mentioned in both [[Indian epic poetry]] and the [[Constitution of India]],{{sfn|Clémentin-Ojha|2014}}<ref>{{Citation |title=The Constitution of India |date=1 December 2007 |url=https://lawmin.nic.in/coi/coiason29july08.pdf |access-date=3 March 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140909230437/https://lawmin.nic.in/coi/coiason29july08.pdf |url-status=dead |publisher=[[Ministry of Law and Justice (India)|Ministry of Law and Justice]] |quote=Article 1(1): India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States. |archive-date=9 September 2014}}</ref> is used in its variations by many Indian languages. A modern rendering of the historical name ''Bharatavarsha'', which applied originally to [[North India]],<ref name="Jha2014">{{Citation |last=Jha |first=Dwijendra Narayan |title=Rethinking Hindu Identity |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dqDgBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA11 |page=11 |year=2014 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=978-1-317-49034-0}}</ref>{{sfn|Singh|2017|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=dYM4DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA253 253]}} ''Bharat'' gained increased currency from the mid-19th century as a native name for India.{{sfn|Clémentin-Ojha|2014}}{{sfn|Barrow|2003}} ''[[Hindustan]]'' ({{IPA-hns|ɦɪndʊˈstaːn||Hindustan.ogg}}) is a [[Middle Persian]] name for India that became popular by the 13th century,<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Paturi |first1=Joseph |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oCo5DAAAQBAJ |title=World Religions & Cults Volume 2: Moralistic, Mythical and Mysticism Religions |last2=Patterson |first2=Roger |date=2016 |publisher=New Leaf Publishing Group |isbn=978-0-89051-922-6 |editor-last=Hodge |editor-first=Bodie |location=United States |pages=59–60 |chapter=Hinduism (with Hare Krishna) |quote=The actual term Hindu first occurs as a Persian geographical term for the people who lived beyond the Indus River. The term Hindu originated as a geographical term and did not refer to a religion. Later, Hindu was taken by European languages from the Arabic term al-Hind, which referred to the people who lived across the Indus River. This Arabic term was itself taken from the Persian term Hindū, which refers to all Indians. By the 13th century, Hindustan emerged as a popular alternative name for India, meaning the "land of Hindus." |editor-last2=Patterson |editor-first2=Roger}}</ref> and was used widely since the era of the [[Mughal Empire]]. The meaning of ''Hindustan'' has varied, referring to a region encompassing present-day northern India and [[Pakistan]] or to India in its near entirety.{{sfn|Clémentin-Ojha|2014}}{{sfn|Barrow|2003}}<ref>{{Citation |title=Hindustan |url=https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/266465/Hindustan |encyclopedia=[[Encyclopædia Britannica]] |access-date=17 July 2011}}</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page