| In
the Vedic age the land of India was called Sapta Sindhu, the land of
the seven rivers. The same name appears in the Zend Avesta, the holy
book of the ancient Persians, as Hapta Hindu, with the Sanskrit ‘s’
replaced with an ‘h’, a sound shift that occurs in various
Indian dialects as well. The Greeks called the land India or Indika,
which also derives from the term Sindhu, removing the initial
sound altogether. So clearly Sindhu or Hindu was a name for
India going back to very ancient times. India was Sindhu Sthana, the
land of the rivers or Sapta Sindhu Sthana, the land of the
seven rivers.
|
