Names for India

"Bhāratavarṣa" is derived from the name of the Vedic tribe of Bharatas who are mentioned in the Rigveda as one of the principal peoples of Aryavarta (the part of the Indian subcontinent settled by Aryans).

"Hindustan" is still commonly used in the subcontinent to refer to the modern day Republic of India by Hindustani speakers.

[8] Darius I conquered Sindh in about 516 BCE, upon which the Persian equivalent Hinduš was used for the province at the lower Indus basin.

[citation needed] India was known in Old English language and was used in King Alfred's translation of Paulus Orosius.

The name "India" then came back to English usage from the 17th century onward, and may be due to the influence of Latin, or Spanish or Portuguese.

[citation needed] Sanskrit indu "drop (of Soma)", also a term for the Moon, is unrelated, but has sometimes been erroneously connected.

The name is derived from the ancient Hindu Puranas, which refer to the land that comprises India as Bhāratavarṣa and uses this term to distinguish it from other varṣas or continents.

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).

He (Bharata) had the best qualities and it was because of him that this land by the people is called Bhāratavarṣa" Bharat Khand (or Bhārat Kṣētra[24]) is a term used in some of the Hindu texts.

In the Sanskrit epic, the Mahabharat (200 BCE to 300 CE), a larger region of Indosphere is encompassed by the term Bharat.

[25] Some other Puranic passages refer to the same Bhārata people, who are described as the descendants of Dushyanta's son Bharata in the Mahabharata.

[27] In 2023, President Droupadi Murmu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi used the Bharat name in connection with a G20 gathering, which caused speculation on a name-change for the country.

'Bharat mainland') in a geographical sense is in the Hathigumpha inscription of King Kharavela (first century BCE), where it applies only to a restrained area of northern India, namely the part of the Ganges west of Magadha.

[36][37] Emperor Babur of the Mughal Empire said, "On the East, the South, and the West it is bounded by the Great Ocean.

This alternate name is still used occasionally in Thailand, Malaysia, Java and Bali to describe the Indian Subcontinent.

Since at least 13th century, several influential indigenous Tibetan lamas & authors also started to refer to India as the Phagyul, short for Phags yul, meaning the land of aryas i.e. land of noble, holy, enlightened & superior people who are the source of spiritual enlightenment.

Its Sino-Xenic reading is Tenjiku in Japanese, Cheonchuk (천축) in Korean, and Thiên Trúc in Vietnamese.

Devout Buddhists in the Sinosphere traditionally used this term and its related forms to designate India as their "heavenly centre", referring to the sacred origins of Buddhism in the Indian subcontinent.

The land produces elephants, rhinoceros, tortoise shell, gold, silver, copper, iron, lead, and tin.

[44] The name Tianzhu and its Sino-Xenic cognates were eventually replaced by terms derived from the Middle Chinese borrowing of *yentu from Kuchean, though a very long time elapsed between that term's first use and its becoming the standard modern name for India in East Asian languages.

[48] In Japanese for example, the name Indo (インド, 印度, or occasionally 印土) had been found occasionally in 18th and early 19th-century works, such as Arai Hakuseki's Sairan Igen (1713) and Yamamura Saisuke [ja]'s Indoshi (印度志, a translation of a work by Johann Hübner).

However, the use of the name Tenjiku, which was heavily associated with the image of India as a land of Buddhism, was not completely displaced until the early 20th century: scholars such as Soyen Shaku and Seki Seisetsu [ja] who travelled to India for pilgrimages to Buddhist historical sites, continued to use the name Tenjiku to emphasise the religious aspect of their travels, though most of their contemporaries (even fellow Buddhist pilgrims) adopted the name Indo by then.

[54] 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 Bharat."

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 Bharat."