Hindustan

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Author:Laxman Burdak, IFS (R)

Hindūstān (हिन्दुस्तान), along with its shortened form Hind,[1] is the Persian-language name which arose from a corruption of the word Sindhu[2][3], and originally referred to a tract of land on the left bank of the lower Indus River.[4][5] Hindustan is a Persian word meaning the country of the Hindus or Sindus.[6]

Variants

Etymology

Hindustan is derived from the Persian word Hindū cognate with the Sanskrit Sindhu.[7] The Proto-Iranian sound change *s > h occurred between 850 and 600 BCE, according to Asko Parpola.[8] Hence, the Rigvedic sapta sindhava (the land of seven rivers) became hapta hindu in the Avesta. It was said to be the "fifteenth domain" created by Ahura Mazda, apparently a land of 'abnormal heat'.[9] In 515 BCE, Darius I annexed the Indus Valley including Sindhu, the present day Sindh, which was called Hindu in Persian.[10] During the time of Xerxes, the term "Hindu" was also applied to the lands to the east of Indus.[11]

In middle Persian, probably from the first century CE, the suffix -stān was added, indicative of a country or region, forming the present word Hindūstān.[12] Thus, Sindh was referred to as Hindūstān, or "Indus land" in the Naqsh-e-Rustam inscription of Shapur I in c. 262 CE.[13][14]

Historian B. N. Mukherjee states that from the lower Indus basin, the term Hindūstān got gradually extended to "more or less the whole of the subcontinent". The Greco-Roman name "India" and the Chinese name Shen-tu also followed a similar evolution.[15][16]

The Arabic term Hind, derived from Persian Hindu, was previously used by the Arabs to refer to the much wider Indianised region from the Makran coast to the Indonesian archipelago.[17] But eventually it too became identified with the Indian subcontinent.

In the time of the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughal empire, the ruling elite and its Persian historiographers made a further distinction between "Hindustan" and "Hind". Hindustan referred to the territories of Northern India in the Miyan-Doab and adjacent regions under Muslim political control, while "Hind" referred to the rest of India. For example, the army of Ghiyas ud din Balban was referred to as "Hindustani" troops, who were attacked by the "Hindus".[18]

Definition

Hindustan, (Persian: “Land of the Indus”) also spelled Hindusthan, historically, the northern Indian subcontinent—in contrast to the Deccan, the southern portion of the Indian subcontinent. This area can be defined more particularly as the basin of the five Punjab rivers and the upper Indo-Gangetic Plain. As a mostly fertile and well-populated corridor situated between walls of mountain, desert, and sea, Hindustan has been regarded as the principal seat of power in South Asia, containing the bulk of wealth and physical energy. The name Hindustan is sometimes used to indicate the lands “north of the Vindhya Range.” It is also occasionally used as a synonym for the entire Indian subcontinent.[19]

History

Hindustan was the classical Persian word for India, but when introduced to the subjects under Persianate rule, the subsequent culture which resulted from these events gave it another specific meaning that of the cultural region between the river Sutlej (end of Northwestern India) and the city Varanasi (start of Eastern India).

The region where the Ganga-Jamuni Tehzeeb and the Hindustani language traces its origins, it corresponds to the plains where the river Yamuna flows or the regions/states encompassing Haryana, Delhi and west and central Uttar Pradesh(more precisely, the central Indo-Gangetic plain).

Hindustan was also commonly spelt as Hindostan,[20] which is even sometimes preferred in modern-day contexts to refer to the Indian subcontinent, especially to avoid the incorrect interpretation of Hindustan as land of followers of present-day Hinduism.[21]

Other ancient toponyms for the subcontinent include Jambudvīpa and Bharata Khanda.

Early Persian scholars had limited knowledge of the extent of India. After the advent of Islam and the Muslim conquests, the meaning of Hindustan interacted with its Arabic variant Hind, which was derived from Persian as well, and almost became synonymous with it. The Arabs, engaging in oceanic trade, included all the lands from Tis in western Balochistan (near modern Chabahar) to the Indonesian archipelago, in their idea of Hind, especially when used in its expansive form as "Al-Hind". Hindustan did not acquire this elaborate meaning. According to André Wink, it also did not acquire the distinction, which faded away, between Sind (roughly what is now western Pakistan) and Hind (the lands to the east of the Indus River);[22][23][24] other sources state that Sind and Hind were used synonymously from early times,[25] and that after the arrival of Islamic rule in India, "the variants Hind and Sind were used, as synonyms, for the entire subcontinent."[26]

The 10th century text Hudud al-Alam defined Hindustan as roughly the Indian subcontinent, with its western limit formed by the river Indus, southern limit going up to the Great Sea and the eastern limit at Kamarupa, the present day Assam.[27] For the next ten centuries, both Hind and Hindustan were used within the subcontinent with exactly this meaning, along with their adjectives Hindawi, Hindustani and Hindi.[28][29][30]

Indeed, in 1220 CE, historian Hasan Nizami described Hind as being "from Peshawar to the shores of the Indian Ocean, and in the other direction from Siwistan to the hills of Chin."[31]

Babur Nama

The region of Hindustan is extensive, full of men and full of produce. On the east, south and even on the west it ends at its great enclosing ocean (muḥiṭ-daryā-sī-gha). On the north it has mountains that connect with those of Hindu-Kush, Kafiristan and Kashmir. North-west of it lies Kabul, Ghazni and Qandahar. Dihlī is held (aīrīmīsh) to be the capital of the whole of Hindustan...

– Babur Nama, A. S. Beveridge, trans., vol. 1, sec. iii: 'Hindustan'[32]

Ch.30: Capture of Aornus. — arrival at the Indus. (p.262-264)

Arrian[33] writes.... ON the first day his army constructed the mound the length of a stade; and on the following day the slingers shooting at the Indians from the part already finished, assisted by the missiles which were hurled from the military engines, repulsed the sallies which they made against the men who were constructing the mound. He went on with the work for three days without intermission, and on the fourth day a few of the Macedonians forcing their way occupied a small eminence which was on a level with the rock. Without taking any rest, Alexander went on with the mound, being desirous of connecting his artificial rampart with the eminence which the few men were now occupying for him. But then the Indians, being alarmed at the indescribable audacity of the Macedonians, who had forced their way to the eminence, and seeing that the mound was already united with it, desisted from attempting any longer to resist. They sent their herald to Alexander, saying that they were willing to surrender the rock, if he would grant them a truce. But they had formed the design of wasting the day by continually (delaying the ratification of the truce, and of scattering themselves in the night with the view of escaping one by one to their own abodes. When Alexander discovered this plan of theirs, he allowed them time to commence their retreat, and to remove the guard which was placed all round the place. He remained quiet until they began their retreat; then taking ‘yoo of the body-guards and shield-bearing infantry, he was the first to scale the rock at the part of it abandoned by the enemy; and the Macedonians ascended after him, one in one place another in another, drawing each other up. These men at the concerted signal turned themselves upon the retreating barbarians, and killed many of them in their flight. Others retreating with panic terror perished by leaping down the precipices; and thus the rock which had been inexplicable to Heracles was occupied by Alexander. He offered sacrifice upon it, and arranged a fort, committing the superintendence of the garrison to Sisicottus, who long before had deserted from the Indians to Besstts in Bactra, and after Alexander had acquired possession of the country of Bactria, entered his army and appeared to be eminently trustworthy.

He now set out from the rock and invaded the land of the Assacenians; for he was informed that the brother of Assacenus, with his elephants and many of the neighbouring barbarians had fled into the mountains in this district. When he arrived at the city of Dyrta1, he found none of the inhabitants either in it or in the land adjacent. On the following day he sent out Nearchus and Antiochus, the colonels of the shield-bearing guards, giving the former the command of the Agrianians and the light-armed troops2, and the latter the command of his own regiment and two others besides. They were despatched both to reconnoitre the locality and to try if they could capture some of the barbarians anywhere in order to get information about the general affairs of the country; and he was especially anxious to learn news of the elephants. He now directed his march towards the river Indus3, and his army going forward made a road, as otherwise this district would have been impassable. Here he captured a few of the barbarians, from whom he learnt that the Indians of that land had fled for safety to Abisares, but that they had left their elephants there to pasture near the river Indus. He ordered these men to show him the way to the elephants. Many of the Indians are elephant-hunters, and these Alexander kept in attendance upon him in high honour, going out to hunt the elephants in company with them. Two of these animals perished in the chase, by leaping down a precipice, but the rest were caught and being ridden by drivers were marshalled with the army. He also as he was marching along the river lighted upon a wood, the timber of which was suitable for building ships; this was cut down by the army, and ships were built for him, which were brought down the river Indus to the bridge, which had long since been constructed for him by Hephaestion and Perdiccas.

1. Probably Dyrta was at the point where the Indus issues from the Hindu-Koosh. Grovovius first introduced και before τους ψιλους.

2. The name Indus is derived from the Sanscrit appellation Sindhu, from a root Syandh, meaning to flow. The name Indians, or Sindians, was originally applied only to the dwellers on the banks of this river. Hindustan is a Persian word meaning the country of the Hindus or Sindus. Compare the modern Sinde, in the north-west of India, which contains the lower course of the Indus. In Hebrew India was called Hodu, which is a contraction of Hondu, another form of Hindu. See Esther i. 1; viii. 9. Krüger changed ωδοποιειτο into ωδοποιει

p.262-264
Go to Index of the Book


हिन्दुस्तान

हिन्दुस्तान (अथवा 'हिन्दोस्तान' या 'हिन्द') भारत देश का कई भाषाओं (जैसे, उर्दू, हिन्दी, अरबी, फ़ारसी, संताली इत्यादि) में अनाधिकारिक लेकिन विख्यात नाम है। आजकल अरब देशों और ईरान में "हिन्दुस्तान" शब्द भारतीय उपमहाद्वीप के लिये प्रयुक्त होता है और भारत गणराज्य को हिन्द (अरबी : अल-हिन्द) कहा जाता है। हिंदुस्तान एवं हिन्द शब्द का प्रयोग अक्सर अरबी एवं ईरानी किया करते थे।

इतिहास: हिंदुस्तान शब्द का इतिहास हिन्दुकुश पहाड़ियों से भी जुड़ा हुआ है। हिन्दू कुश की पहाड़ियों के पीछे की जगह को ही हिंदुस्तान कहा जाता था। जब मुगल भारत में आए तो उससे पहले उन्हें इन पहाड़ियों का सामना करना पड़ा था। हिंदुस्तान शब्द का एक और स्रोत माना जाता है। इसके अनुसार ईरानी (पर्शिया) का शब्द 'हिन्दू' एवं संस्कृत के शब्द सिन्धु से भी हिन्दुस्तान शब्द की उत्पत्ति हुई हो सकती है।

ये भी कहा जाता है कि जब डारियस (Darius I) प्रथम ने जब सिन्धु घाटी पर अधिकार किया तो उसने सिन्धु नदी के पीछे वाली भूमि को हिन्दुस्तान कहकर पुकारा। शायद मध्य पर्शियाई काल में प्रत्यय 'स्तान' भी हिन्दू के साथ जोड़ दिया गया होगा और फिर दोनों शब्दों के योग से बना शब्द - हिन्दुस्तान।

References

  1. ↑ Kapur, Anu (2019). Mapping Place Names of India. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-0-429-61421-7.
  2. ↑ Śivaprasāda, Rājā (1874). A History of Hindustan. Medical Hall Press. p. 15. The Persians called the tract lying on the left bank of the Sindhu (Indus) Hind, which is but a corruption of the word Sindh.
  3. ↑ Sharma, Arvind (2002). "On Hindu, Hindustan, Hinduism and Hindutva". Numen. 49 (1): 1–36. doi:10.1163/15685270252772759. JSTOR 3270470.p.3
  4. ↑ Śivaprasāda, Rājā (1874). A History of Hindustan. Medical Hall Press. p. 15. The Persians called the tract lying on the left bank of the Sindhu (Indus) Hind, which is but a corruption of the word Sindh.
  5. ↑ Mukherjee, The Foreign Names of the Indian Subcontinent (1989), p. 46: "They used the name Hindustan for India Intra Gangem or taking the latter expression rather loosely for the Indian subcontinent proper. The term Hindustan, which in the "Naqsh-i-Rustam" inscription of Shapur I denoted India on the lower Indus, and which later gradually began to denote more or less the whole of the subcontinent, was used by some of the European authors concerned as a part of bigger India. Hindustan was of course a well-known name for the subcontinent used in India and outside in medieval times."
  6. ↑ The Anabasis of Alexander/4b,p.263,fn-2
  7. ↑ Sharma, On Hindu, Hindustan, Hinduism and Hindutva (2002), p. 3.
  8. ↑ Parpola, Asko (2015). The Roots of Hinduism: The Early Aryans and the Indus Civilization. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0190226923. Ch.9
  9. ↑ Sharma, On Hindu, Hindustan, Hinduism and Hindutva (2002), p. 2.
  10. ↑ Parpola, The Roots of Hinduism (2015), Chapter 1.
  11. ↑ Sharma, On Hindu, Hindustan, Hinduism and Hindutva (2002), p. 3.
  12. ↑ Habib, Hindi/Hindwi in Medieval Times (2011), p. 105.
  13. ↑ Mukherjee, The Foreign Names of the Indian Subcontinent (1989), p. 46.
  14. ↑ Ray & Chattopadhyaya, A Sourcebook of Indian Civilization (2000), p. 553.
  15. ↑ Mukherjee, The Foreign Names of the Indian Subcontinent (1989), p. 46.
  16. ↑ Ray & Chattopadhyaya, A Sourcebook of Indian Civilization (2000), p. 555.
  17. ↑ Wink, Al-Hind, Volume 1 (2002), p. 5: "The Arabs, like the Greeks, adopted a pre-existing Persian term, but they were the first to extend its application to the entire Indianized region from Sind and Makran to the Indonesian Archipelago and mainland Southeast Asia.
  18. ↑ Peter Jackson (2003). The Delhi Sultanate:A Political and Military History. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521543293.
  19. ↑ https://www.britannica.com/place/Hindustan-historical-area-Asia
  20. ↑ Christine Everaer (2010). Tracing the Boundaries Between Hindi and Urdu: Lost and Added in Translation Between 20th Century Short Stories (annotated ed.). BRILL. p. 82. ISBN 9789004177314.
  21. ↑ Patterson, Jessica (March 2021). "Forging Indian Religion: East India Company Servants and the Construction of 'Gentoo'/'Hindoo' Scripture in the 1760s". Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies. 44 (1): 77–100.
  22. ↑ Ahmad, S. Maqbul (1986), "Hind: The Geography of India according to the Medieaeval Muslim Geographers", in B. Lewis; V. L. Ménage; Ch. Pellat; J. Schacht (eds.), The Encyclopedia of Islam, Volume III (H–IRAM) (Second ed.), Brill, ISBN 978-90-04-12756-2
  23. ↑ Wink, Al-Hind, Volume 1 (2002), p. 5: "The Arabs, like the Greeks, adopted a pre-existing Persian term, but they were the first to extend its application to the entire Indianized region from Sind and Makran to the Indonesian Archipelago and mainland Southeast Asia."
  24. ↑ Wink, Al-Hind, Volume 1 (2002), p. 145: "The Arabic literature often conflates 'Sind' with 'Hind' into a single term. Sind, in point of fact, while vaguely defined territorially, overlaps rather well with what is currently Pakistan. It definitely did extend beyond the present province of Sind and Makran; the whole of Baluchistan was included, a part of the Panjab, and the North-West Frontier Province."
  25. ↑ Fatiḥpūrī, Dildār ʻAlī Farmān (1987). Pakistan movement and Hindi-Urdu conflict. Sang-e-Meel Publications. There are examples to show that "Hind" and "Sind", have been used as synonyms.
  26. ↑ Qureshi, Ishtiaq Husain (1965). The Struggle for Pakistan. University of Karachi. p. 1. It was after the Arab conquest that the name Sind came to be applied to territories much beyond modern Sind and gradually it came to pass that the variants Hind and Sind were used, as synonyms, for the entire subcontinent.
  27. ↑ Ray & Chattopadhyaya, A Sourcebook of Indian Civilization (2000), p. 555.
  28. ↑ Ali, M. Athar (January 1996), "The Evolution of the Perception of India: Akbar and Abu'l Fazl", Social Scientist, 24 (1/3): 80–88, doi:10.2307/3520120, JSTOR 3520120
  29. ↑ Ahmad, Imtiaz (2005), "Concepts of India: Expanding Horizons in Early Medieval Arabic and Persian Writing", in Ifran Habib (ed.), India — Studies in the History of an Idea, Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, pp. 98–99, ISBN 978-81-215-1152-0
  30. ↑ Habib, Irfan (July 1997), "The Formation of India: Notes on the History of an Idea", Social Scientist, 25 (7/8): 3–10, doi:10.2307/3517600, JSTOR 3517600
  31. ↑ The Indian Magazine, Issues 193-204. National Indian Association in Aid of Social Progress and Education in India. 1887. p. 292. Again Hasan Nizami of Nisha-pur, about A.D. 1220, writes: "The whole of Hind, from Peshawar to the shores of the Ocean, and in the other direction from Siwistan to the hills of Chin."
  32. ↑ Ray & Chattopadhyaya, A Sourcebook of Indian Civilization (2000), p. 17.
  33. ↑ The Anabasis of Alexander/4b,p.263
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