The Greek geographer Herodotus (5th century BC) describes the land as India, calling it ἡ Ἰνδική χώρη (Roman transliteration: hē Indikē chōrē, meaning "the Indus land"), after Hinduš, the Old Persian name for the satrapy of Punjab in the Achaemenid Empire.
Herodotus in 4.40 uses the term "India" for the Indus basin, and describes it as being on the eastern fringe of the inhabitable world,[2] But he knew of Indians (Hindwan) living beyond the Persian province of Hinduš (3.101):[3] In book 3 (3.89-97), Herodotus gives some account of the peoples of India; he describes them as being very diverse, and makes reference to their dietary habits, some eating raw fish, others eating raw meat, and yet others practising vegetarianism.
[citation needed] As the western travellers went into the rest of the subcontinent through the original "India", the name was gradually extended to the inner regions.
[3][4] After Megasthenes, a Bactrian Greek that spent several years in the court of Magadha, south India was also known, referred to as Pandaia (Pandya country).
[3] By the 3rd century BC, Eratosthenes recognised "India" as terminating in a peninsula (reflecting a first grasp of the geography of the Indian subcontinent).