Is Bharat India?

Great Debates
1

Is Bharat India?
The name: ‘India’ has nothing to do with ‘Bharat,’ ‘Hinduism’ or ‘Hindus.’ Bharati-Hindus have, like so many other symbols of our highly prestigious heritage, plagiarized and have been committing the most serious and grievous misnomer in regard of her name.
‘Bharati Hindus’ always keep their real face, trick and task cloaked, for their ‘realities’ in accordance with sacred teaching of Chanakya.
So simply for this reasons they have displayed, Muslim Name, ‘India’ and have sent their real name, ‘Bharat’ in the background, for they know that they can neither throw away their real name ‘Bharat’ nor they can escape therefrom so openly.
Hence by applying their traditional duplicity, they resorted to display the stolen name ‘India’ on the forefront and kept their real name ‘Bharat’ dormant, hidden and behind.
Their real name has been Bharat throughout even in the period far before than Ashoka the Great, which falls far before the Christ. While a well known Rajah namely, Rajah Bharata (or Rajah Bherath), according to “Puranas” had united some seven regions (or continents) in the north of the now Bharat and was reigning thereupon with great pomp and show. The name of that very regions (or continents), much less than the now Bharat (being somewhat peninsular) was ‘Jambu Dvipa’. And it was after the death of the aforementioned Rajah Bharata (or Rajah Bharat), the Hindus used to call the land as ‘Bharth Varsh’ or Bharatavarsha (i.e. land of the Bharata). In this way the present name of ‘Bharat’ is the corruption of ‘Bharata’ (or Bherath).
Under their constitution article: 1 (1) their constitutional name of the country is also Bharat.

I quote the exact words of the famous researcher, Sri Swami Sivananda Saraswati (1887 -1963) from his book ‘All about Hinduism’ as below:
“The classical name for India which is used in Sanskrit literature is Bharata -Varsha or Bharata-Khanda, after the name of Bharata who ruled over a large extent of territory in days of yore. Manus name for the whole central region between the Himalayas and the Vindhya mountains is Aryavarta, Abode of the Aryans. Another name for the whole of India is Jambu-Dvipa. The Greeks gave the name Indu to the whole of this country. It was on account of this India became popular as the name of this country throughout Europe”.
Renowned Professor C.R. Mishra notes in his valuable research work; ‘Comprehensive History and Culture of Orissa’ that Bharata did not originally denote India: "Bharatavarsha, here is used in a general sense denoting the regions of northern India " (P: 121). Elaborating this, he states that Bharata is mentioned for the first time in the Hatigumpha inscription and that it denoted only a part of North India - " In the epigraphic records of ancient India, the name Bharatavarsha' is mentioned for the first time in the Hatigumpha inscription. But the name denoted North India at that time." (C.R. Mishra, Kharavela and His Times’, P: 130, N: 79).
And it is for this reason that their ultra religious and orthodox political pundits have named their most rabid pack as **‘Bharatya Janata Party’ (BJP). The name of one of their religious book (holy epic) is also “Mahabharata” a long poem narrating the long fight between Kurus and Pandus, the two clans of Bharata family.
And Hindus have also been calling their country as ‘Bharat Mata’ **(i.e. Mother Bharat). And now they have named their first ever so called spaceship as “Bharateena”.

2

Ok, I’ll take your documentation. Can you promise to not come to my house anymore?

3

Actually, “India” and “Hindu” have the same source from Old Persian and Sanskrit, so to say they have nothing to do which each other seem like a bit of an overstatement.

I’ll dismiss the rest of your conspiracy-mongering if you don’t mind. You do realize that Bharat or some form of it is the country’s official name in every language but English, right? Thats’s some bad cloaking.

4

You know, I was once at a lecture by Bernard Lewis where he made the point that as far as Muslim culture is concerned, history started with the birth of Muhammad, and nothing that happened before that is of any relevance. That’s why the Caliphate preserved ancient Greek scientific texts (because science is useful), but completely ignored Greek literature and history.

If the OP is any indication, Dr. Lewis had a point. The OP seems to believe that Indian history began with the Muslim invasion and conquest, and that the thousands of years of Hindu history that preceded it simply did not exists. It’s interesting.

5

Still, it’s nice for people to have a hobby. It keeps them off the streets and doesn’t scare the horses.

6

You know, a lot of your posts seem verbatim copies of books I have read, for example I swear the above was inMusa Khan’s autobiography.
On the issue of Bharat, well it was often used as the name for India by Hindu nationalists before Partition and to this day by uber-nationalists in Pakistan as short hand for “Indian Hegemony”.

7

Seems a weird hypothesis, given that even the Koran covers pre-Mohamaddian history. But there were plenty of histories written by Arabs themselves as well as famous transmitted Greek historical works (Plutarch, for example) that covered pre-Islamic history. Also a lot of Classical Arabic commentary on Greek texts involve stories about the ancient mathematicians and philosophers (largely bullshit stories granted, but it shows they were interested in the history even if not exactly rigirous in their fact checking).

I suspect Lewis is just riffing off the fact that the Arabs never had copies of Herodotus or Thucydides, but I think thats just because the Arabs just weren’t as focused on the brief Athenian golden age as we are. When it came to the stories behind more important powers like Rome or Macedonia or Egypt, they seem to have been as curious as they were about any other topic.

8

The Muslims have ruled exclusively, the whole Indian sub continent for round about 1000 years. If the name ‘India’ had any link with ‘Hinduism’ or Hindus, the Muslim powerful rulers, particularly the emperor Aurang Zeb Alamgeer would have consigned it to the dustbin of the history.
They have grabbed our exclusively owned entity and property, the name ‘India’ - as they have grabbed Junagadh, Hyderabad Deccan, Siachin, Kargil and Kashmir. How they did it, I borrow the quotation from the famous book, ‘Freedom at Midnight’ of the two renowned co-authors, Mr. Larry Collins & Mr. Dominique Lapierre:
“AT THE OUTSET CONGRESS CLAIMED THE MOST PRECIOUS ASSET OF ALL, THE NAME “INDIA”. REJECTING PROPOSAL TO NAME THEIR NEW DOMINION “HINDUSTAN”, CONGRESS INSISTED THAT SINCE PAKISTAN WAS SECEDING, THE NAME INDIA AND INDIA’S IDENTITY IN GROUPS LIKE U.N. REMAIN THEIRS”.

9

A quick Google search reveals the two posts are lifted verbatim from this article which appears to be written by some Pakistani crank. What is the point of this thread exactly?

10

So? What’s a thousand years? I got hats older than that.

11

There is no denying the fact that the Greek word ‘Indos’ and the Latin word ‘Indus’ have been the ancient names of the mighty River, ‘Sindh’ (i.e. Indus) respectively. And the ‘Sindhus’ as well as India have been derived from the words ‘Sindh’ and ‘Indus’ respectively.
One of the world’s most ancient civilizations has been the ‘Indus Valley Civilization’ which came out more than 3230 BC - flourished and cherished in the Indus Valley - and when it perished, after the intrusion of the Aryan settlers - it was buried also in its nativity.
Thus the Indus Valley Civilization was also native of the Indus Valley. And ergo it also derived its name from the very river, ‘Sindh, (i.e. Indus) - whose Greek and Latin names were/are pronounced as ‘Indos’ and ‘Indus’ - and so that ancient most civilization is remembered in the history, as “Indus Valley Civilization”. Though it had the most ‘contemporary’ features.
Its main ‘Mausoleums,’ the largest sites with citadels, have also been discovered in Pakistan; ‘Moenjo-Daro’ on the lower Indus plain in the South at Larkana District - ‘Chanhu Daro’ in Nawabshah District, (in Sindh Province) - ‘Harappa’ on the upper Indus plain in the north, at Sahiwal (in Punjab province) – ‘Shahi Tump’ in the valley of Kej (Mekran) in the Baloch territory and ‘Judeiro Daro’ in the Pathan region of Balochistan.
Now let us go back a little more in time. The intrusion of the Aryans started in waves after waves in about 3000 BC, and continued for about 1000 years. Those Aryans were not a single tribe or race but they were comprised of an assortment of tribes from the Central Asia. So in first instance, those Aryans settled in the upper part of the mighty river; ‘Sindh/Indus’ namely, ‘Sindh Valley’ or ‘Indus Valley’ - which were then known as ‘Saptasindhva’ or ‘Sapta Sindhus’ meaning, land of the seven rivers (i.e. Sutlaj, Bias, Ravi, Chenab, Jehlum, Sindh and the now extinct river Saraswati).
Celebrated writer, Bode Roy Punjabi quoting the illustrious researcher, Dr. Abinas Chandra Das writes as under, “The land in which the Vedic Aryans lived is called in Rigveda by the name of Saptasindhva or the land of seven rivers, which includes the Indus or Sindhu with its principal tributaries on the west and the saraswati on the east. The Ganges and the Yamunas have certainly been mentioned once or twice but they have not at all been included in the computation of the seven rivers that gave the country its name.”
**Bode Roy Punjabi **writes in his book, ‘Saptasindhva’ as under:
“Thus the area now forming Kashmir, the Punjab, the NWFP, Eastern Balochistan and Sind (h) was the area of Aryan Settlement”.
Distinguished scholar, A.L. Bhasham writes in his famous Book, ‘The Wonder that was India’ - “Of the two river systems that of the Indus, now mainly in Pakistan, had the earliest civilization and gave its name to India. The fertile plains of the Punjab watered by the five great tributaries of the Indus had a high culture over two thousand years before Christ, which spread down the lower course of the Indus as far as the sea.”
Similar is the account of the eminent research scholar, Sri Swami Sivananda in his research work, ‘Origin and Significance of the term Hindu’ in the following words:
“That part of the great Aryan race which migrated from Central Asia, through the mountain passes into India, settled first in the districts near the river Sindhu, now called the Indus, on the other side of the river. The Persians pronounced the word Sindhu as Hindu, and named their Aryan brethren Hindus. Hindu is only a corrupt form of Sindhu”.
So merely as a common noun from the word “Sapta Sindhus” and simply for the reason of their new common nativity and to denote those Aryan settlers as whole: they were first called as ‘Sindhus’ and ‘Sindhi’ in some of the local and eastern languages. And exactly for the same reason and as a common noun from the word ‘Indus’ they were called as Indians in most of the western languages. Thus none of those Aryans was neither Hindu nor that was possible, for Hinduism was not yet handcrafted.
Similarly the heartland of the Indus Valley Civilization, making a part of Pakistan is called even today as Sindh (i.e. Sindh Province) and its natives as ‘Sindhi’ because of the river ‘Sindh/Indus’ - exactly as natives of Punjab (i.e. land of five rivers) are called Punjabis, as a common noun.
Now how the erstwhile common noun ‘Sindhus’ transmuted subsequently in‘Hindus’- the proper noun that implied subsequently, one pertained to Hinduism. Or to simplify this question a little more, how the then simple common noun ‘Sindhus’ from the word ‘Sindh’, corrupted into ‘Hindus,’ the complicated noun which turned into as a certain creed specific.

12

As someone who lives in a province named after what a conquered people used to call the major river in the area, I believe I speak for everyone when I say, “What?”

13

Can you promise that you will not continue illegal occupation of my house; Kashmir, Siachen, Sir Creek anymore?

14

Hindus Aggression in Pakistan:

15

Fighting over a glacier? Let me show you the correct manner in which to dispute ownership of an ice-covered bit of rock:

Any sympathy I might have had with the Pakistani cause in the Kashmir has long vanished after all the state-sponsored terror attacks (which have not been limited to the 2008 Mumbai attack by any stretch).

16

This thread has no point beyoind a rather silly claim that India has no right to name itself whatever it wishes.

Given that the thread was founded on two plagiarized pieces from other sites, I am closing this thread with a Warning to Abisafyan to back off on his one-trick-pony attacks on India and his plagiarism.

Abisafyan, if you need to make a point, write it out in your own words, then provide a link to the source of your claim. Stop copying and pasting texts from other sources into your posts.

[ /Moderating ]