Names of India

The Republic of India is principally known by two official short names: India and Bharat. As per Article 300 of the Constitution of India, the Government of India may be referred to as the Union of India in legal proceedings. An unofficial third name is Hindustan, which is widely used throughout North India. Although these names now refer to the modern country in most contexts, they historically denoted the broader Indian subcontinent.

Overview

"India" (Greek: Ἰνδία) is a name derived from the Indus River and remains the country's common name in the Western world, having been used by the ancient Greeks to refer to the lands east of Persia and south of the Himalayas. This name appeared in Old English by the 9th century and re-emerged in Modern English in the 17th century.

The earliest known epigraphical attestations of the name Bharata occurs in the Hāthigumphā inscription of King Kharavela (2nd-1st century BCE), a Jain inscription at Udayagiri Caves, near Bhubaneswar in Odisha. The inscription, which records Kharavela's military campaigns, contains a reference to Bharatavarsha, indicating that the term was already in use as a cultural or territorial designation in ancient India.

According to Jain tradition, the name "Bharatavarsha" derives from Emperor Bharata, the eldest son of the first Tirthankara, Rishabhdeva (also named Adinatha or Ikshvāku). Jain texts describe Bharata as a universal monarch (chakravartin), after whom the land was named.