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Where does the word Hindu come from?  Vedic heritage traces NO such Name and the intrusion is a mystery shrouded in the history.

“There is no religion higher than truth” is the basic principle of Bharateeya or Aarsha Samskaar. The tenets of ‘Sanatana dharma’ embedded in the Aarsha Samskaar, an unwritten lineage created by the Rishis or sages of the ancient civilization promulgates only ‘ Dharma’ or a righteous way of human life and living. Rishis were super brain scientists with visionary acumen to predict the future (Divya Drishti).There is, no one particular  person attached or attributed to these tenets which encompass the entire universe or wherever human life exists. Their continuous lineage endeavours for the welfare of humanity-past, present and future. Scripture quotes “bhavishyatascha lokasha sarvakarmanu saadhakam” meaning, for the benevolence or well-being of all and the future generations to come.

All civilizations happened along the banks of great rivers of the world, since water is the elixir of life. The seven rivers, Ganga, Yamuna, Godavari, Saraswathi, Narmada, Sindhu and Kaveri and their tributaries are the pastures for the developments of the great Aarsha samskaar or civilization the most ancient civilization that the historians talks about.  Among all the great rivers mentioned,  Sindhu Nadi being the widest,  longest  and the gateway for the western invaders to enter the more civilized and prosperous land, became the gateway to the eastern civilization as per available evidence. Thus, the Indus Valley civilization came to be known as the oldest known and recorded history of the human race and its developments with proven evidence unearthed over several centuries.

It is high time we rewrite our history eschewing the ‘word’ or the name Hindu referring to a human race and religion that divide the great nation Bharat. People living in the regions of Sindhu River happen to pronounce the alphabet ’S’  (yes) as ‘Hi’  ( As in Assam Shastra  pronounced as hotra or hotriya ). They wrote S and pronounced it as Ha.

The western and middle eastern invaders who came up to the river bank region called Sindhudesh followed the same oral tradition using the sound ‘hi’ for ‘si’ thus coining the word  Hindu, Hindusthan etc.

That ultimately abbreviated to India.  We must understand and make the world know that there is no word Hindu or India in the entire Samskrita nikhandu (Amarakosha)  or samskritam dictionary. Vedas and Vedic culture being our strong foundation for our civilisation, no one could find the word Hindu or Hindu matha or religion in that.

Taking this naked truth as the strong and deep-rooted evidence we should let go of the word ‘hindu’ and only pronounce it as Sindhu, the name attributed to the great River Sindhu.

Simultaneously we should bring the Sanatana samskaara, an all in all secular concept founded by a lineage of Rishis with great magnanimity of open mindedness,  like the creator of the world himself, whom everyone worships.

Aadi Sankaracharya from whose period-say,  two thousand years since, our Aarsha Bharatam started reviving and resurrecting the losing Vedic ethos. Then came different dynasties,  fragmenting the ‘Akhanda Bharatam’ into regions with varied languages, customs , rituals and lifestyles with a common Vedic thread of spiritual lineage or Aarsha Samskriti that kept the country under one umbrella  of Sanatana Dharma  and one meaningful name Bharatam,or Bharatavarsha,  the land which expels the ignorance of the world.  The country as a whole never addressed itself as Hindu rashtra or Hindusthan.  Probably only after Islamic invasion, that name was introduced and a religious concept in line with Islam and Christianity was injected into our streams of belief. Sankaracharya also did not establish a religion or anywhere used the word Hindu in his everlasting and monumental works of Advaita siddhanta or philosophy.

Even though there had been rivalry between smaller kingdoms in the Akhanda Bhaaratavarsha, none had attempted to invade or wage a war beyond the boundaries of Bharatam  with the intention of looting others’ wealth in any form, materially or otherwise.

We should also understand and make the world realise that  others invaded us on several occasions to loot our both material and intellectual wealth,  exploiting  our steadfast philosophy and deep-rooted benevolent character  ‘Atithi devo bhava’-which means  ‘treat your guest as Bhagavan’. Finally the Europeans entered the country through the sea route , very cleverly spreading  their wings bringing the whole Bharatam under slavery, making it lose its strength as a united Aarsha Bharatam.

Bharatam as a holistic  nation was never a poor nation, both materially and intellectually. After  flushing out the invaders we are now back to Aikya Bhaaratam,  mutilated by the  bifurcation  losing one arm to the  invaders in the name of Pakistan.  Hope the day will dawn that it will be reunited with the mainland Bharat  regaining the original nomenclature “Akhanda Bhaaratam or Aikya Bharatam ” .

Suffice it to say it is high time we eschew or break away from the hypothetical tag “Hindu, Hindusthan and Hindumatham etc”  and stick to the name Bharata and Sanatana Dharma as our way of life.