India Be Named As Bharat/hindustan

[Capt M Kumar]

<!--emo&:argue--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/argue.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='argue.gif' /><!--endemo--> I don't know much about the origin of the word "'India'"except for the following:
1. Perhaps closer to Indian tribes in America as was thought by Columbus
2. or could be related to Indus valley and civilisation which now is part of Pakistan.
Here the tale begins to name <span style='color:green'><span style='font-size:21pt;line-height:100%'>India as Hindustan</span></span>.
1.Think of it, Madras state named as Tamil Nadu and Madras city as Chennai.
2. Bombay named as Mumbai
3. Bangalore as Bangaluru
and so on.

[shamu]

Why not Bharat?

[Guest]

Original name is Bharat, Islamic society started calling it Hindustan.
In place of India, it should be Bharat only.

[Capt M Kumar]

<!--emo&:cool--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/specool.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='specool.gif' /><!--endemo--> Ditto!(title modified as a result)
And it may be acceptable to Hindi secular world though English secular world may not relinquish India.

Please vote and support and if somebody can, set this as a petition.

[Pandyan]

<!--QuoteBegin-Capt M Kumar+Jul 30 2008, 07:32 PM-->QUOTE(Capt M Kumar @ Jul 30 2008, 07:32 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->I don't know much about the origin of the word "'India'"except for the following:
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It is either from Latin (liften from Greek) or an anglicization of the Greek word Indus, which was derived from Hindu, which was in turn derived from Sindhu.

Traditional name would be Bharatavarsha. Savarkar finds <i>Hindustan</i> to be acceptable since its derived from Sindhu and was used before Islamics by Persians, but I think Bharatavarsha would be more appropriate.

Stupid Indian govt still has road named after Aurangzeb, cities/towns named after Muslims, I guess they are very proud of Islamic legacy. Shameless.

[Shambhu]

I wish was Bharat right after 1947 itself!

Our idiot babus did not care. And Gandhi, I am sure, would have fasted unto death if Bharat had been suggested in 1940...(well, we could have avoided a lot of bloodshed that way, come to think of it..).

[Guest]

This is result of slave elite's inferiority complex.

[Husky]

But it <i>is</i> called Bharatam/Bharatavarsha already (and Bharatadesha also I think). Bharatam is how my family members/people of the same village as my grandparents call it (unless they had need on occasion to say something in English, which is the only time they ever said 'India'). Isn't this the case with everyone? I thought we only said 'India' on this forum because we were writing in English. Even the word India derives from Hindu origins (Sindhu, Indu, Hindu) - without which neither the Parshyas nor Greeks (let alone the recent christocolonials from Britain who only copied the word from the Romans) could have got their names for our region.

Some stuff:
http://sarasvati95.googlepages.com/antiquityhindu.pdf
<b>Antiquity and Origin of the Term 'Hindu'</b> by Dr. Murlidhar H. Pahoja

Hindusthanam is mentioned in a shloka too. Besides, you can trace the word back to 'Hindu' (which has Hindu origins, see pdf above) and the word 'sthanam' (Samskritam).

http://www.hindubooks.org/whr/why_hindu_.../page9.htm
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>WHY HINDU RASHTRA ?</b>
<b>Hindu Rashtra - Eternal and Perennial</b>
[...]
While in the Vedic period the feeling of intense intimacy towards the motherland is expressed in the words "Mata bhoomih putroham prithivyah" - "Aye, we are children of this mother earth," in the Pauranic period it takes the form of :

(उत्तरं यत्समुद्रस्य हिमाद्रश्चैव दक्षिणम् ।
वर्षं तद् भारतं नाम भारती यत्र संततीः ।।
From: Vishnu Purana (2.3.1)[1][2])
<b>Uttaram yat samudrasya, Himadreschaiva dakshinam !
Varsham tad Bharatam nama Bharati yatra santatih !!
(Bharat is the name of country situated to the north of the sea
and south of the Himalayas and its progeny is known as Bharati.)</b>

The same sentiment was expressed in the middle ages in the following sloka of Barhaspatya shastra :

<b>Himalayam samarabhya yavadindu sarovaram !
tam devanirmitam desham Hindusthanam prachakshate !!
This land created by the Gods and extending from the Himalayas to Indu Sarovar [i.e., the Indian Ocean], is known as Hindusthan.)</b>

It is to be noted that this sloka also points to the possible formation of the word Hindu, as a beautiful synthesis of Hi of the Himalayas and Indu of the Indusarovar. There is also the belief that it is a variation of Sindhu originally used to denote the people living in the region around the river Sindhu (Indus) but later came to be applied for the people of the entire country. There is no doubt that in both the cases, the word Hindu has been used for the offspring of this land. The following Vedic sloka has sublimated this tradition of intense attachment to the motherland by depicting it (motherland) as the Rashtradevata, the divine manifestation of nationhood itself


<b>Bhadramicchanta rishayah swarvidah tapodeekshamudaseduragre
Tato rashtram balamojascha jatam tadasmai deva upasannamantu.
(The sages carried out austere penances for the welfare of mankind; and out of that (penance) was born the nation endowed with strength and prowess. Therefore let us worship this Rashtradevata. (Atharva-Veda)</b><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Some related stuff from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Userreetikapoor0 - got the purple bit above from here as well.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->जो समुद्र के उत्तर और हिमालय के दक्षिण में स्थित है , उस देश का नाम भारत है तथा उसकी संतानों को भारतीय कहते हैं।
The country that lies north of the ocean, and south of the snowy mountains, is called Bhárata, for there dwelt the descendants of Bharata.


गायन्ति देवाः किल गीतकानि धन्यास्तु ये भारतभूमिभागे ।
स्वर्गापवर्गास्पदहेतुभूते भवन्ति भूयः पुरुषाः सुरत्वात् ।।
From: Vishnu Purana (2.3.24)[4][5]
Meaning:The Gods themselves exclaim, "Happy are those who are born, even from the condition of Gods, as men in Bhárata-varsha, as that is the way to the pleasures of Paradise, or the greater blessing of final liberation. [6]


हिमवत्समुद्रान्तरमुदीचीनं योजनसहस्त्रपरिमाणम्
From:अशा-०९.१.१८ (अर्थशास्त्रम् अध्याय 09, Chanakya)[9]
Meaning: To the north of the oceans up to the Himalayas, the country is 1000 yojanas in length.[10]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd--> (I turned the G in Gods to uppercase in the above)


To the Zoroastrians of Parsa, the word Hindustan had the same meaning, -stan being the Iranian equivalent of the sthan(am) of Samskritam. There is certainly nothing islamic in the word Hindustan. However, there is definitely something very kaffiri about every country whose name contains '-stan'.

Although I thought the government officially recognised the country as Bharatam too ("India, that is Bharatam"), what matters when we get down to it is that Hindus have since long ago used this as the name of our country. We still do.

[Guest]

I think Bharatvarsha would be the only suitable name. Also, "Delhi" should be changed to Indraprastha, and the current Indrapastha be the historic Indraprastha district.

[Guest]

I was always taught in Gujerati classes that the Gujerati word for India is Bharat, as I am sure it is in other Indian dialects.

When you speak in Gujerati, you should refer to India as Bharat.

India is the English and western name for India, if speaking in English, it is correct to use India, but speaking in an Indian language, you should use Bharat, unless there is a different name for India in your language.

But English is commonly mixed in with a persons native language to make certain sentances and words easier. For example, I have never heard any Indian person use their native word for 'Room' when speaking in one of the Indian languages, but when I had my exams in Gujerati, we had to call a 'Room' an 'Oer-do', and I have never heard a single person use that word outside of my classes.

It is like the country Germany. Most of the world, for example England, India and America call it Germany. However, in German, Germany is Deutschland, and German is Deutsch, but people who speak English, Hindi, or Gujerati are not going to call it Deutschland.

I see the name of a country as being based on the language you speak. If you choose to speak English, then it is India. If you choose to speak an Indian language, then it is most commonly Bharat.

But no one in my family, even my Grandparents who only speak both Gujerati and Hindi call India Bharat. They are all happy using the word India, and they are of course proud of their country, but I have never heard them call it Bharat. I actually first learnt about the name Bharat in an English text book on countries, not from my parents or anyone in my family, who all just call it India.

(Hi, my first post here <!--emo&:beer--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cheers.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='cheers.gif' /><!--endemo--> )

[Husky]

<!--QuoteBegin-Bhavv+Sep 9 2008, 01:59 PM-->QUOTE(Bhavv @ Sep 9 2008, 01:59 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->If you choose to speak English, then it is India.[right][snapback]87740[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Hmmm. Thinking about this, it's not necessarily so. Since it is in fact Bharatam to Dharmics. (Besides, it's also one of its official names when written in English language documents.) And when Dharmics speak in whatever language, they have the right to opt referring to their own country as Bharatam - which is its actual name. It's our country after all. We may <i>choose</i> to refer to it as 'India' on such occasions where we deem it expedient. But it's real and original name - to its Dharmic inhabitants - is Bharatam (plus its other real and original Dharmic names), whether we say it or not.


Sri Lanka, Taiwan and Cambodia have all reverted to their original Dharmic names: no longer called Ceylon, Formosa and Indochine (was it) anymore, even in Engelsk. Only some christoconverts in SL still refer to it by the name of Ceylon, like "Ceylon Tea" and "Made in Ceylon".
Christoislamics are free to call Bharatam as per their imagination (free to be colonially enslaved still and imagine it is actually really called India). Certainly don't want to get them damned for eternity by their non-existent gawd for saying sacred Hindu names, now do we.

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-Husky+Sep 9 2008, 09:02 AM-->QUOTE(Husky @ Sep 9 2008, 09:02 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Since it is in fact Bharatam to Dharmics.

And when Dharmics speak in whatever language, they are free to refer to their own country as Bharatam

<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Yes, to Dharmics it is Bharatam, but the western word is derived from the old Greek / Persian word, which was Indus, based on the Indus river. The word Indus has been used by western civilization since the 4th century BC.

Dharmics are free to call it Bharatam in any language if they choose to, I didnt mean to say there is anything wrong with that, but the west is also free to call it India based on the historic context behind the word Indus, and also, some Indians still choose to call it India, like when I told my family they should be calling it Bharat when speaking in Gujerati, they still chose to carry on calling it India.

I do agree that India's name should be changed to Bharat or Bharatam in India and on the Indian world map, and likewise the west are also free to still call it India on their maps as this is based on a word that has been around since the ancient Greeks, and Islamic countries can call it Hindustan.

I am speaking from more from a western perspective though because I live in England, and in my post above was refering more to calling it Bharat or India over here based on language, but in India, I think it is more correct to call the country Bharat or Bharatam.

From a language perspective, which is what my first post was refering to, when speaking I personally dislike mixing English and Gujerati words together, although I need to do it because I know very little Gujerati, so I need to put in some English words, but I like to call India Bharat in Gujerati because it sounds better then saying India, and vice versa when speaking in English.

[Husky]

<!--QuoteBegin-Bhavv+Sep 9 2008, 03:37 PM-->QUOTE(Bhavv @ Sep 9 2008, 03:37 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin--><!--QuoteBegin-Husky+Sep 9 2008, 09:02 AM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Husky @ Sep 9 2008, 09:02 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Since it is in fact Bharatam to Dharmics.

And when Dharmics speak in whatever language, they are free to refer to their own country as Bharatam<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Yes, to Dharmics it is Bharatam, but the western word is derived from the old Greek / Persian word, which was Indus, based on the Indus river. The word Indus has been used by western civilization since the 4th century BC.[right][snapback]87743[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->Indus is derived from the much older Dharmic word Sindhu for our Sindhu River. See Pandyan's post 5 above.

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Islamic countries can call it Hindustan<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->They can call it as they wish. They also call it the land of the impure, which is - again - their thing.
But Hindustan is factually a kaffiri name. (It's not even ancient Arabic, only imported into Arabian.) "Hindust(h)an(am)" is in fact doubly kaffiri, since it is both Dharmic <i>and</i> Zarathusthrian. See my post 8 above.

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->From a language perspective, which is what my first post was refering to, when speaking I personally dislike mixing English and Gujerati words together, <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Of course every person would do what they choose or are used to.
But don't know whether there's a case for doing so on the grounds of "internal linguistic consistency" when speaking in English (for example, we don't want to go all British and be calling the HimAlayAs as the "Himm-uh-lay-us" which to us is pretty much like the baabaaa the Hellenes heard and described as barbar-barbaric). Nor can "aesthetic-sounding English" be the reason: since by far most Indians speak English badly/not properly anyway (Tamglish, Tenglish, Hinglish what have you), nothing wrong in occasionally making our way of speaking Engelsk sound a bit nicer by adding in Bharatam when we get the chance.
One friend never calls her country Wales or refers to herself as Welsh when speaking Engelsk, since she finds it offensive of course.

And here are the Hellenes referring to their country by its proper name Hellas in their English translation too - not just referring to it as Greece (Greece mentioned once on this entire page). And they can obviously write English very well:
http://www.ysee.gr/index-eng.php?type=english&f=faq

[Bodhi]

<!--QuoteBegin-Husky+Sep 9 2008, 04:41 PM-->QUOTE(Husky @ Sep 9 2008, 04:41 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->And here are the Hellenes referring to their country by its proper name Hellas in their English translation too - not just referring to it as Greece (Greece mentioned once on this entire page). And they can obviously write English very well:
http://www.ysee.gr/index-eng.php?type=english&f=faq
[right][snapback]87747[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

well, last year when Abdul Kalam visited Greece, her president Karolos Papoulias addressed Indian delegation in Sanskrit (what a shame none in our delegation could respond in Sanskrit or Greek), and in that address he called his country 'yavanadesha' which is the proper sanskrit name given to that country by India, and not 'Hella-bhumi' or 'Greece-desha'. My opinion, India, Bharat, Hindusthan, Aryavarta, more, - we should claim all these names equally as our own, although I prefer Bharat in communication including in English.

[Husky]

<!--QuoteBegin-Bodhi+Sep 9 2008, 06:24 PM-->QUOTE(Bodhi @ Sep 9 2008, 06:24 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->My opinion, India, Bharat, Hindusthan, Aryavarta, more, - we should claim all these names equally as our own, although I prefer Bharat in communication including in English.[right][snapback]87750[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->This is what I meant too. I don't completely mind the use of India in English all that much, but have noticed how the use of "India" makes some other people so smug even though they have no reason to be - particularly ignorant non-Indians or christos of India.
Personally, I would like Bharatavarsha to be used more often and ideally to replace the <i>common</i> use of "India" altogether. Can't properly explain it, but "India" reminds me of the half-baked 'independence' we got from christoterrorism aka colonialism: a name that has the false semblance of newness as if we were supposedly a new nation (like external forces pretend we are). We are not a new nation at all. Also, I like our own names and would like us (Dharmics) to start using them again.

[Guest]

Bharatavarsha isnt the actuall name of the country of India today, this was the name given to the whole of Greater India after it was conquered by Bharata:

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Bharatavarsha refers to the total Earth. Emperor Bharata was the first and the only emperor to rule all India.

The Vishnu Puranam accounts the extent of Bharatavarsham,


    "Uttaram yat samudrasya Himdreschaiva daksinam
    Varsham tat Bharatam nama Bharati yatra santati"

    (The region spanning in between the Himalayas in the north to the
    Indian ocean in the south is called Bharatavarsham and the natives
    of this region are called Bharatiyas (Indians)]]

Bharatakantham is the region which is contained in Bharatavarsha, comprising of modern South Asia. In the Hindu prayer invocations (Sankalpam), the normal order of geography is

    Bharatavarshe (Akhanda Bharatam), Bharatakante (Bharatam),..

    (In the land of Bharatavarsha, in Bharatakantha and so on)<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The Republic of India is officially known as Bhārat after Bharata (Monier-Williams: "'king Bharatas's realm' i.e. India")<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Bharatavarsha refers to a greater landmass then the Republic of India covers today, also, the Ideology of King Bharata is considered by some people to be a Mythology in the Mahabarata, not factual evidence.

Whereas the word India, rather then being based on a mythological being, is based on the geographic location of the country based on the Indus River.

There is also a page here for the official names of India in each of the 23 Schedule VIII languages of India:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_names_of_India

It isnt actually called Bharatavarsha by any of them, I consider Bharatavarsha to be India's mythological name for an area that covered a larger part then modern India / Bharat does today.

There is also this page here for the names of India:

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->India

The English term is from Greek Hindía (Ἰνδία), via Latin India. Hindía in Byzantine (Koine Greek) ethnography denotes the region beyond the Indus (Ἰνδός) river, since Herodotus (5th century BC) ἡ Ἰνδική χώρη "Indian land", Ἰνδός "an Indian", from Avestan Hinduš (referring to Sindh, and listed as a conquered territory by Darius I in the Persepolis terrace inscription). The name is derived ultimately from Sindhu, the Sanskrit name of the river, but also meaning "river" generically. Latin India is used by Lucian (2nd century).

The name India was known in Anglo-Saxon, and was used in King Alfred's translation of Orosius. In Middle English, the name was, under French influence, replaced by Ynde or Inde, which entered Early Modern English as Indie. The name India then came back to English usage from the 17th century onwards, and may be due to the influence of Latin, or Spanish or Portuguese. [1]

Sanskrit indu "drop (of Soma)", also a term for the Moon, is unrelated, but has sometimes been erroneously connected. Listed by, among others, Colonel James Todd in his Annals of Rajputana, he describes the ancient India under control of tribes claiming descent from the Moon, or "Indu", (referring to Chandravanshi Rajputs), and their influence in Trans-Indian regions where they referred to the land as Industhan.

[edit] Bharat

The name Bhārat[2] is used for the Republic of India, derived from Bhārata in the official Sanskrit name of the country, Bhārata Gaṇarājya. The form Bharata is used in several other Indian languages.

The Sanskrit word bhārata is a vrddhi derivation of bharata, which was originally an epithet of Agni. 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). The root bhr is cognate with the English verb to bear and Latin ferō. This term also means "one who is engaged in search for knowledge".

The Bhāratas were Indians mentioned in the Rigveda, notably participating in the Battle of the Ten Kings.

The term Bhārata as a name for India as a whole is derived from the name of Bharata son of Dushyanta, a legendary ruler mentioned in the Mahabhārata (the core portion of which is itself known as Bhārata). The realm of Bharata is known as Bharātavarṣa in the Mahabhārata and later texts. The term varṣa means a division of the earth, or a continent. [1]

From: Vishnu Purana (2.3.1)[2][3]

    uttaraṃ yatsamudrasya himādreścaiva dakṣiṇam
    varṣaṃ tadbhārataṃ nāma bhāratī yatra santatiḥ

    उत्तरं यत्समुद्रस्य हिमाद्रेश्चैव दक्षिणम् ।
    वर्षं तद् भारतं नाम भारती यत्र संततिः ।।
    "The country (varṣam) that lies north of the ocean and south of the snowy mountains is called Bhāratam; there dwell the descendants of Bharata."

The term in Classical Sanskrit literature is taken to comprise the territory of the contemporary Republic of India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh, as well as portions of eastern Afghanistan. This corresponds to the approximate extent of the historical Maurya Empire under emperors Chandragupta Maurya and Ashoka the Great (4th to 3rd centuries BC). Later political entities unifying approximately the same region are the Mughal Empire (17th century), the Maratha Empire (18th century) , and the British Raj (19th to 20th centuries).

Akhanda Bharata ("undivided Bharat") is an irredentist term of Hindu nationalism calling for a re-unification of the region under the predominance of Dharmic culture.

[edit] Hindustan and Hind

    Main article: Hindustan

The name Hind is derived from the Iranian equivalent of Indo-Aryan Sindh. The Avestan -stān means country or land (cognate to Sanskrit sthāna "place, land").

India was called Hindustan in Persian although the term Hind is in current use. al-Hind الهند is the term in the Arabic language (e.g. in the 11th century Tarikh Al-Hind "history of India"). It also occurs intermittently in usage within India, such as in the phrase Jai Hind.

The terms Hind and Hindustān were current in Persian and Arabic from the 11th century Islamic conquests: the rulers in the Sultanate and Mughal periods called their Indian dominion, centred around Delhi, Hindustan. -stan is a Persian suffix meaning "home of/place of".

Hindustān, as is the term Hindu itself, entered the English language in the 17th century. In the 19th century, the term as used in English referred to the northern region of India between the Indus and Brahmaputra rivers and between the Himalayas and the Vindhyas in particular, hence the term Hindustani for the Hindi-Urdu language. Hindustan was in use synonymously with India during the British Raj.

Hind (Hindi: हिन्द) remains in use in Hindi-Urdu. In contemporary Persian language, the term Hindustan has come to mean the Indian subcontinent, and the modern Indian Union is called Hind. The same is the case with Arabic language, where al-Hind is the name of the Republic of India. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

The official name for India today is Bharat, with variations of different names in different languages.

I definately consider the different names to be purely language based, and both India and Bharat are historically correct. It is a choice to call the country whichever of the names you want it to be called.

India is not the Christian name, the words origins predate Christianity by thousands or years. It is a purely geographic name used for the section of land between the Himalayaas and south of India.

<!--QuoteBegin-Husky+Sep 9 2008, 11:11 AM-->QUOTE(Husky @ Sep 9 2008, 11:11 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin--> when speaking in English (for example, we don't want to go all British and be calling the HimAlayAs as the "Himm-uh-lay-us" which to us is pretty much like the baabaaa the Hellenes heard and described as barbar-barbaric). Nor can "aesthetic-sounding English" be the reason: since by far most Indians speak English badly/not properly anyway (Tamglish, Tenglish, Hinglish what have you), nothing wrong in occasionally making our way of speaking Engelsk sound a bit nicer by adding in Bharatam when we get the chance.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Your example here is not language difference though, it is a linguistic difference based on accent. Everyone from different parts of the world speak with a different accent, and a persons accent is normally based on their first language, or which language they use more often. I have heard many Indians in England that can switch fluently between English and Gujerati / Hindi or any other language and speak in the correct pronounciation for both, I have also spoken to transfer students from India that can speak English a whole lot better then most English people can. Linguistic differences for pronounciation are based on the language you speak most commonly, and also based on how much slang you use, for example, not one person in my family can actually speak Gujerati properly, it is always full of slang and English words because they have long forgotten the real Gujerati language and vocabulary, this is what I was reffering to when I say I dont like a combination of different languages. A language is always different based on who is speaking it, but if one actually chooses to learn to, they can learn to speak and pronounce languages clearly with the proper pronounciation and without using slang.

[Bharatvarsh]

" For example, I have never heard any Indian person use their native word for 'Room' when speaking in one of the Indian languages"

As an aside.

Room is gadhi in telugu and is used by many people, only reason some people use english word is because they think english is prestigious or because they don't know Telugu properly NOT because sentences are made easier, how is gadhi or arai (Tamil) any harder to say than room.

Same with school, people in rural areas of AP still use badi as do I.

[Guest]

Yes the reason is because they dont know the language properly. Some people are fluent with their langages and can speak them correctly, others are not because they speak a lot of slang. I shouldnt have said:

'I have never heard any Indian person use their native word for 'Room' when speaking in one of the Indian languages'

Because I can only understand Gujerati and am not aware of other languages. I should have just said I have never heard anyone speaking in Gujerati use the word Ordo except for my Gujerati teacher, the same is true for Bharat.

In that respect, I think that calling Bharat India in one of India's languages is a mistake like any other slang - Just like saying room or school instead of the correct word.

If you refer to this chart here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_names_of_India

The only languages that actually call Bharat India are English and Tamil. In the other languages, the official name for India already is some form of Bharat.

People are free to call it Bharat, or even Bharatvarsha if they choose to, but calling it India is a mistake unless speaking in English.

<!--QuoteBegin-Capt M Kumar+Jul 30 2008, 11:32 PM-->QUOTE(Capt M Kumar @ Jul 30 2008, 11:32 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->1. Perhaps closer to Indian tribes in America as was thought by Columbus

<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

I would just like to try and answer this misconception.

There are no 'Indian' tribes in America. The word India was given to America as a mistake. Columbus initially set out on a voyage to discover India, but landed in the Bahamas and mistaked the inhabitants as Indians:

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->His initial 1492 voyage came at a critical time of growing national imperialism and economic competition between developing nation states seeking wealth from the establishment of trade routes and colonies. In this sociopolitical climate, Columbus's far-fetched scheme won the attention of Queen Isabella of Spain. Severely underestimating the circumference of the Earth, <b>he hypothesized that a westward route from Iberia to the Indies would be shorter and more direct than the overland trade route through Arabia.</b> If true, this would allow Spain entry into the lucrative spice trade — heretofore commanded by the Arabs and Italians. Following his plotted course, he instead landed within the Bahamas Archipelago at a locale he named San Salvador. <b>Mistaking the North-American island for the East-Asian mainland, he referred to its inhabitants as "Indians</b><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

There were in reality no Indian tribes in America, they were just called this by mistake. The word India has always been meant to describe the people of the Indus Valley, and from the Himalays to the south of India.

The word India originates from Indus, and is the western name for India. The word Bharat originates from the Mahabharata, and is the correct native name for India if speaking in one of India's languages is Bharat (No idea why it is called India in Tamil though).

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>he hypothesized that a westward route from Iberia to the Indies would be shorter and more direct than the overland trade route through Arabia.</b><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

More on this sentance - In Christopher Columbus's days, no one knew that America existed. They only know about the world spanning between Europe and Asia, or from Britain to India. He hypothesized that travelling west over the ocean would allow him to land in India because they thought there was nothing but sea between the West of Europe, and the East of India. So he traveled west, and landed in America in the Bahamas. He thought that he had sailed all the way from europe westwards to East India over the pacific ocean, and that is why the Americans were wrongly called Indians.

[Bharatvarsh]

"The only languages that actually call Bharat India are English and Tamil. In the other languages, the official name for India already is some form of Bharat."

Just as a clarification. In Tamizh it is Bharatam, many people just like in other language groups use India these days but Bharatam is the Tamizh word.

[Husky]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Bharatavarshe (Akhanda Bharatam) <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Even the name Bharatam refers to the complete, Ancient Bharatam (from Uppaganistan in W to modern land called 'Bangladesh' in E, though all of Bengal's original name was Bangladesha - it too is a Hindu name).

Bharatam is the same as Bharatavarsha: refers to the historic geography of Hindu civilisation named after Bharata.

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Bharatavarsha refers to a greater landmass then the Republic of India covers today<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->So, Hindu civilisation's geography is that "greater India". It is our historic country.

The following was already posted in #8. Yes, it describes the N-S bounds of ancient Hindu land:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->    "Uttaram yat samudrasya Himdreschaiva daksinam
    Varsham tat Bharatam nama Bharati yatra santati"

    (The region spanning in between the Himalayas in the north to the
    Indian ocean in the south is called Bharatavarsham and the natives
    of this region are called Bharatiyas (Indians)]]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->


<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>the Ideology of King Bharata is </b>considered by some people to be a <b>Mythology</b> in the Mahabarata, not factual evidence.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->"The ideology of Bharata... mythology".
<i>No</i> (and this is part of what I meant when I said Indians - including myself of course - speak bad Angelsk). "The ideology of Bharata" was Hindu Dharma. Nothing mythological about that.
As for Bharata himself, I don't care about "some people"'s opinion. Some people think our Gods are a myth too <!--emo&:blink:--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='blink.gif' /><!--endemo--> The only myth is jeebus. Don't know why everyone presumes that just because the religion and pseudo-history of the christolie is a lie, that it therefore follows that the history of Bharatavarsha, Chung Kuo, Nippon, Koryo, Parsa and other lands are too.

Why does christoism get the benefit of the doubt (when it certainly doesn't deserve it), whereas countries known not to lie about their history where it matters get doubted from the get-go? Christo-conditioning.


<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->It isnt actually called Bharatavarsha by any of them, <b>I consider</b> Bharatavarsha to be India's mythological name for an area that covered a larger part then modern India / Bharat does today.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Good that you qualified it with a "you consider". It's a free world, one can consider as one chooses to. Opinions are free. Opinions need have no relation to facts though.
You can imagine whatever you want as myth and imagine whatever it is you want to be factual. Doesn't make it so, of course. For instance:

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The word India originates from Indus, and is the western name for India. The word Bharat originates from the Mahabharata, and is the correct native name for India if speaking in one of India's languages is Bharat (No idea why it is called India in Tamil though).<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Wrong on two counts. The word India originates from the native Hindu word Sindhu for our River. Why stop at the point of India's etymology where Sindhu was turned to Indus and declare that "therefore Indus was the originating word for India"? No, it wasn't. If we hadn't called the River Sindhu, no one would have later come to call our country India. Thought that was obvious.
Two: the word Bharat does not "originate" from the Mahabharatam. It exists in Hindu Traditions that are pre-Mahabharatam. From Bharata came forth many Hindu dynasties, people who in our literature trace their ancestry to Bharata himself. And from his ancestors, there came other Hindu dynasties as well.
Dynasties in written literature (and some living Hindu communities even today) trace themselves back through so-and-so to Bharata or his parents or ancestors. For a recent post that refers to such things see one written by Ishwa.

Our history of Kings is not like some vague Biblical mess that puts towns where they couldn't ever have been or gives dates and other details to events such that they couldn't ever have happened (example, the alleged census in the NT: utterly impossible, as it is completely wrong about known historic facts - things that would have been known to anyone living at the time and place referred to).


Dharmics of our country always kept track of who our ancestors were, just like the Japanese and Chinese. (And like the Zarathusthrians of Parsa and the Hellenes used to do until the dreaded christoislamism destroyed their civilisations.)

Psecularism instills the sort of reactionary 'reasoning' whereby character X of a Natural Tradition's history is assumed to be a myth because (s)he was from a time before "The Beginning of the World According to the Babblehhh" or is otherwise a problem to theology. Of course, psecular after-arguments are then applied to make the reasoning <i>appear</i> more rationalised/less biblical to those not <i>consciously</i> christo-influenced.

http://koenraadelst.voiceofdharma.com/bo...t/ch46.htm
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Puranic history reaches back beyond the starting date of the composition of the Vedas.  In the king-lists, a number of kings are enumerated before the first kings appear who are also mentioned in the Rg-Veda. In what remains of the Puranas, no absolute chronology is added to the list, but from Greek visitors to ancient India, we get the entirely plausible information such a chronology did exist.  To be precise, the Puranic king-list as known to Greek visitors of Candragupta’s court in the 4th century BC or to later Greco-Roman India-watchers, started in 6776 BC.47 Even for that early pre-Vedic period, there is no hint of any immigration.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd--> http://koenraadelst.voiceofdharma.com/arti...icevidence.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Shrikant Talageri’s survey of the relative chronology of all Ŗgvedic kings and poets, recently made public in several lectures, has been based exclusively on the internal textual evidence (see Talageri: The Ŗgveda, a Historical Analysis, Delhi, forthcoming), and yields a completely consistent chronology. Its main finding is that the geographical gradient of Vedic Aryan culture in its Ŗgvedic stage is from east to west, with the eastern river Ganga appearing a few times in the older passages (written by the oldest poets mentioning the oldest kings), and the western river Indus appearing in later parts of the book (written by descendents of the oldest poets mentioning descendents of the oldest kings).<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->When no persons of the ancient past remains now to confirm, deny or correct the written and oral traditions regarding Natural Traditions' "ur" history (i.e. pre modern-western history), can't figure out how some self-appoint themselves to decide what is myth and what is not.