India, That Is Bharat

This is Chapter 5 of Exploring Society: India and Beyond (Class 6, the new 2024 book under NCF-SE 2023), the second chapter of Theme B, ‘Tapestry of the Past’. Chapter 4 (Timeline and Sources of History) explains how historians use texts, inscriptions and travellers’ accounts; this chapter uses exactly those sources to answer two ‘Big Questions’ — how do we define India, and what were its ancient names. Chapter 6, The Beginnings of Indian Civilisation (fees106), follows with the Harappan cities. It is a short chapter — about eight pages, two of them full-page maps — so this page has six concept sections. The book’s maps are turned into tables; no outline or river course is drawn here.

• Links in this book: fees101 (the Introduction’s five themes; latitude and longitude for reading Figs. 5.2 and 5.4); fees104 (sources of history — texts, inscriptions, travellers); fees106 (the Harappan, or Sindhu–Sarasvatī, civilisation); Chapter 7 (the Vedas); Chapter 8 (unity in diversity).
• Deeper pages: iest105 (Class 9: Jambudvīpa, Bhāratavarṣa and the idea of the subcontinent as one land — with positions side by side); iest104 and lehs101 (the Harappan civilisation and its names); kehs101 (the Persian empire of Darius); lehs102 (Aśhoka’s inscriptions); lehs201 (Chinese and Arab travellers); keps207 and jess402 (Article 1 and the ‘Union of States’). This page links them and does not re-teach them.
• UPSC: Prelims asked which Purāṇic dvīpa contains Bhāratavarṣa (1993 — Jambudvīpa) and who first used ‘Hindu’ for the people of Hind (1995). Xuanzang questions (1985, 1986, 1999, 2004, 2013) test his visit under Harṣha, which this chapter does not teach.

• Defining India: a modern nation now; for millennia a Subcontinent with shifting names and boundaries but a fixed natural frame — Himalayas north, seas west and east, ocean south. Names come from texts, travellers’ accounts and inscriptions.
• Ṛig Veda (India’s most ancient text): north-west = Sapta Sindhava, ‘land of the seven rivers’; Sindhu = the Indus, or a river in general.
• Mahābhārata: regions (Kāshmīra, Kurukṣhetra, Vanga, Prāgjyotiṣha, Kaccha, Kerala…); whole land = Bhāratavarṣha (‘country of the Bharatas’) and Jambudvīpa (‘island of the jamun fruit’); Aśhoka (c. 250 BCE) used Jambudvīpa.
• Bhārata: Viṣhṇu Purāṇa — north of the ocean, south of the snowy mountains; Tamil poem (≈2,000 years ago) — Kumari to the great mountain, ocean to ocean; today Bharat / Bharatam; Constitution: ‘India, that is Bharat’ (Hindi: ‘Bhārat arthāth India’).
• Foreign names from Sindhu: Persians (6th c. BCE) Hind / Hidu / Hindu — geographical; Greeks Indoi / Indike (no ‘h’); Chinese Yintu / Yindu, Tianzhu; Hindustān — a Persian inscription ≈1,800 years ago.
• Xuanzang (Hiuen Tsang): China → India, 7th century CE; Buddhist texts; back after 17 years; translated Sanskrit → Chinese. UPSC: Bhāratavarṣha in Jambudvīpa (1993); ‘Hindu’ for the people of Hind (1995).

The India we know today is a modern nation with defined borders, defined states and a known population. It was very different 500, 2,000 or even 5,000 years ago. The region we often call the Indian Subcontinent has had many different names and shifting boundaries, and we learn about its past from many different sources. In the course of history, India has been named both by its inhabitants and by visitors from outside; these names come to us from ancient texts, accounts of travellers and pilgrims, and inscriptions. The physical map at the start of the chapter shows the natural boundaries that frame the region: the Hindu Kush and the Himalayas in the north and north-west, the Arabian Sea to the west, the Bay of Bengal to the east and the Indian Ocean to the south — with great rivers flowing from the mountains across the plains.

The Ṛig Veda is India’s most ancient text; the book says it is several thousand years old and will discuss it in Chapter 7. It names the north-west region of the Subcontinent ‘Sapta Sindhava’ — ‘the land of the seven rivers’. ‘Sindhava’ comes from ‘Sindhu’, which refers to the Indus River, or at times to a river in general. Fig. 5.3 zooms in on this north-west: the Indus and its Punjab tributaries, the Sarasvati, and the upper Ganga and Yamuna. The Ṛig Veda therefore names only a region, not the whole Subcontinent — exercise 2 tests exactly this. The same text also first mentions the Bharatas, the people whose name later became the land’s (section 4).

Later literature names other parts of India. The Mahābhārata, one of India’s most famous texts, lists many regions: Kāshmīra (more or less today’s Kashmir), Kurukṣhetra (parts of Haryana), Vanga (parts of Bengal), Prāgjyotiṣha (roughly today’s Assam), Kaccha (today’s Kutch), Kerala, and so on. When do we first meet a name for the entire Subcontinent? Ancient Indian texts are difficult to date, so the answer is not easy. The Mahābhārata — which scholars generally agree was written from a few centuries BCE onward — uses two terms. ‘Bhāratavarṣha’ clearly covers the whole Subcontinent, and the text names many of its rivers and peoples; it means ‘the country of the Bharatas’ (the Bharatas being one of the main Vedic groups in the Ṛig Veda; later literature also mentions several kings named Bharata). ‘Jambudvīpa’ means ‘the island of the fruit of the jamun tree’ — a common tree native to India, also called the jambul or Malabar plum tree — and came to mean the Indian Subcontinent. A good clue to its date comes from the emperor Aśhoka (about 250 BCE), who left many inscriptions: in one he used ‘Jambudvīpa’ for the whole of India, which then included today’s Bangladesh, Pakistan and parts of Afghanistan.

A few centuries later, ‘Bhārata’ became the name generally used for the Indian Subcontinent. The Viṣhṇu Purāṇa says that the country lying north of the ocean and south of the snowy mountains is called Bhārata (the book prints the Sanskrit verse with an English translation). The name remains in use: it is generally written ‘Bharat’ in north India and often ‘Bharatam’ in south India. Different parts of the country adopted a similar definition: a poem of ancient Tamil literature from about 2,000 years ago praises a king whose name is known from [Cape] Kumari in the south to the great mountain in the north, and from the oceans on the east and the west. The ‘great mountain’ is the Himalaya; Kumari is the southern tip of the peninsula. The book’s conclusion: ancient Indians knew their geography well.

The Constitution of India — a document that spells out the basic principles and laws of a nation, studied in Grade 7, which came into force in 1950 — was first written in English and uses the phrase ‘India, that is Bharat’ right at the beginning. The Hindi version says ‘Bhārat arthāth India’. Fig. 5.5 reproduces the first page of the original Constitution so that you can find the phrase. (Beyond NCERT: the words open Article 1(1) — ‘India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States’ — in Part I, The Union and its Territory.)

The first foreigners to mention India were the Persians, the ancient inhabitants of Iran. In the 6th century BCE a Persian emperor won control of the Indus region — once called ‘Sindhu’. So in their earliest records and stone inscriptions the Persians called India ‘Hind’, ‘Hidu’ or ‘Hindu’, adaptations of ‘Sindhu’ in their language. In ancient Persian, ‘Hindu’ is a purely geographical term; it does not refer to the Hindu religion. From Persian sources the ancient Greeks named the region ‘Indoi’ or ‘Indike’, dropping the initial ‘h’, which did not exist in their language. The ancient Chinese called India ‘Yintu’ or ‘Yindu’, also from ‘Sindhu’, through ‘Hindhu’ and ‘Indu’. Another Chinese word from ‘Sindhu’ was ‘Tianzhu’, which could also be understood as ‘heavenly master’ — reflecting Chinese respect for India as the land of the Buddha. The familiar ‘Hindustān’ was first used in a Persian inscription some 1,800 years ago; later it became the term most invaders used for the Subcontinent. The Chinese monk Xuanzang travelled to India in the 7th century CE, met scholars, collected Buddhist texts, returned after 17 years, and translated the manuscripts from Sanskrit into Chinese; several other Chinese scholars came over the centuries.

The chapter’s activity boxes, in page order.

Numbers

One-liners

• Names for India come from texts, travellers’ and pilgrims’ accounts, and inscriptions.
• The Ṛig Veda is India’s most ancient text.
• Sindhu means the Indus, or a river in general.
• Bhāratavarṣha means ‘the country of the Bharatas’.
• The Bharatas were one of the main Vedic groups in the Ṛig Veda.
• Jambudvīpa means ‘the island of the fruit of the jamun tree’.
• The Viṣhṇu Purāṇa: Bhārata lies north of the ocean and south of the snowy mountains.
• Bharat in north India, Bharatam in south India.
• The Hindi Constitution says ‘Bhārat arthāth India’.
• In ancient Persian, ‘Hindu’ was a geographical term.
• The Greeks dropped the ‘h’: Indoi, Indike.
• Tianzhu reflected Chinese respect for India as the land of the Buddha.
• Xuanzang translated the manuscripts he took back from Sanskrit into Chinese.
• Prāgjyotiṣha is roughly today’s Assam; Vanga, parts of Bengal.

Traps to avoid

• Sapta Sindhava is the north-west only — the Ṛig Veda does not describe all of India.
• Bhārata is an Indian name; the Sindhu-derived names (Hindu, Indoi, Yindu, India) came from outside.
• ‘Hindustān’: Persian inscription, about 1,800 years ago — not Greek, not over 2,000 years ago.
• In ancient Persian ‘Hindu’ is geographical, not the religion.
• The Greeks dropped the initial ‘h’ — Indoi, not Hindoi.
• In Purāṇic cosmography Bhāratavarṣha is part of Jambudvīpa (UPSC 1993), while in usage Jambudvīpa came to mean the Subcontinent (NCERT).
• English Constitution: India first; Hindi: Bhārat first — both official.
• Xuanzang came in the 7th century CE (Harṣha’s time); Faxian came earlier, under Chandragupta II.
• Persians were the first foreigners to name India from ‘Sindhu’; Meluhha in Mesopotamian texts is a different, older name (Beyond NCERT).

Prelims — what UPSC asks

• From this chapter: 1993 — in ancient Indian geographical thought Bhāratavarṣa was part of Jambudvīpa (the book teaches both names; the Purāṇic ring scheme is in section 3). 1995 — the word ‘Hindu’ for the people of Hind was first used by whom? Options: Greeks, Romans, Chinese, Arabs; stored key (d) the Arabs. The chapter says the Persians first used ‘Hindu’ (as a place-name) and the Greeks dropped the ‘h’; Persians are not offered, and among the options the Arabs (who used Hind/Hindu for the land and its people) is the standard answer — keep the key, but the question is disputed: the first use was Persian, and it named a place, not a people or a religion.
• Elsewhere: Xuanzang under Harṣha (1985, 1986, 2004, 2013) and the order of foreign visitors — Megasthenes, Faxian, Xuanzang, Yijing (1999) — need Harṣha and the Guptas, taught with them; Megasthenes (1981) in lehs102/lehs201; the most-mentioned Vedic river, Sindhu (1996), with the Vedic period (iest105); Sangam poems (2000, 2022, 2023) in the deeper pages.
• Method: learn the names in three columns — Indian (Sapta Sindhava, Bhāratavarṣha, Jambudvīpa, Bhārata), foreign (Hind/Hindu, Indoi/Indike, Yintu/Yindu, Tianzhu, Hindustān) and modern (India, Bharat) — with one source and one date for each.

Mains — where it appears and how to answer

• GS1 (Indian heritage and culture; ancient history) uses this chapter for introductions on the idea of India and on sources: the names show an old geographical awareness of a land framed by mountains and seas (Viṣhṇu Purāṇa, Tamil poem), and foreign names show contact (Persians, Greeks, Chinese). The 2018 GS1 question on the value of Chinese and Arab travellers’ accounts is taught on lehs201; use Xuanzang here as one example. GS2 answers on Article 1 and the ‘Union of States’ are on keps207.

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