What does Hindu actually mean?

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Dear List Members,

 

Kindly accept my notes "What does Hindu actually mean?" for review.

 

-Ven. Tantra

Erin (Pas de Calais), France

 

See below.

 

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What does Hindu actually mean?

 

As a modern term, Hindu has evolved from the Indo-Iranian root

sindhu. The Proto-Indo-Iranian *sindhus literally refers to

the "Indus river" and the culture pertaining to its long expansive

valley. This is where Hindu culture first developed.(1) Historically,

however, at a very early date, Persian explorers entered the Indian

subcontinent from the far Northwest. After they returned, they

published chronicles. But due to the phonetics of their native

Persian language, the `S' of Sind became an aspirated `H.' This is

how the people of the Indus Valley came to be known generically

as "Hindus" by the Persians. This flawed intonation(2) inevitably

stuck and was later re-imported when the invading Moguls conquered

India. Since they always referred to the locals as "Hindus," the term

was adopted by the Indians themselves as a way of distinguishing

native culture from that of the foreign Muslims.(3) But it should be

noted that still today there is a region, a people and a language

called Sind.

 

Then where does the word "India" come from?

 

The Modern term "India" is simply ancient Greek, though pronounced a

little differently than in English, of course. It is an early

Hellenism whereby the Persian `H' was changed to `I.' This further

lends knowledge to the ancient Greek Indikos and Latin Indicus,

equivalent adjectives meaning "Indian, pertaining to India, having to

do with India," etc. The botanical term for Indian hemp, for example,

is Cannibus Indicus.

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Footnotes:

 

(1) Sindhu thus evolved into Old Persian `hinduš' and was

consequently borrowed from Persian into Greek as Indos. Greek

thereafter formed the name of the country from this stem `ind-' with

the suffix `-ia,' a typical method of forming the names of countries

in Greek. Our name for the river, `Indus,' is the Latin form of the

Greek name and isn't original.

(2)Perhaps it is really not a `flawed intonation,' then. In ancient

Iranic, `h' is the normal outcome of an Indo-Iranian "s" in this

position.

(3)"The Arabic `Al-Hind' is therefore a term denoting a particular

geographical area. Although indigenous use of the term by Hindus

themselves can be found as early as the fifteenth and sixteenth

centuries, its usage was a derivative of Persian Muslim influences

and did not represent anything more than a distinction

between `indigenous' or `native' and foreign (mleccha)." Richard

King, "Orientalism and the Modern Myth of `Hinduism'" (1999). See

also David N. Lorenzen, "Who Invented Hinduism?" (1999), 630-659.