Hindu = Indian

I said in one of my previous posts that 'Hindu' and 'Indian' are synonyms. Let me explain. First we must understand the significance of the river Sindhu (Indus).

Look at the physical map of India. We see that the territory of India is naturally defined. It is a diamond-shaped land, bounded on four sides by the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal, the Himalayas - and the Indus in the northwest. Now most of the other ancient civilisations of the world (Greek, Roman, Persian, etc) were to our west [The only exception was China, which is to our north]. Thus the Indus was what separated us from the rest of the ancient world, and the river became the geographical reference for India.

Now the Persian form of 'Sindhu' was 'Hindu'. And the Greek form of 'Hindu' was 'Indus'. Thus the people who lived in the land beyond the Sindhu were the 'Hindu' (in Persian) or the 'Indoi' (in Greek). And the land was 'Hindustan' (in Persian) or 'India' (in Greek).

Thus we see that the two words are synonyms. What about the word 'Hinduism'? This is a recent term, coined by British scholars in the 18th century to describe the practices and beliefs of the Hindus. It is normal to believe that we are 'Hindus' because we follow a religion called Hinduism. The truth is actually the other way around - the religion is called 'Hinduism' because it is practised by Hindus! (Our own name for our way of life is 'Sanatana Dharma')