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Hindus
Hindus (Hindustani: [ˈɦɪndu] ⓘ; /ˈhɪnduːz/; also known as Sanātanīs) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism, also known by its endonym Sanātana Dharma. Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for people living in the Indian subcontinent.
It is assumed that the term "Hindu" traces back to Avestan scripture Vendidad which refers to land of seven rivers as Hapta Hendu which itself is a cognate to Sanskrit term Sapta Sindhuḥ. (The term Sapta Sindhuḥ is mentioned in Rig Veda and refers to a North western Indian region of seven rivers and to India as a whole.) The Greek cognates of the same terms are "Indus" (for the river) and "India" (for the land of the river). Likewise the Hebrew cognate hōd-dū refers to India mentioned in Hebrew Bible (Esther 1:1). The term "Hindu" also implied a geographic, ethnic or cultural identifier for people living in the Indian subcontinent around or beyond the Sindhu (Indus) River. By the 16th century CE, the term began to refer to residents of the subcontinent who were not Turkic or Muslims.
The historical development of Hindu self-identity within the local Indian population, in a religious or cultural sense, is unclear. Competing theories state that Hindu identity developed in the British colonial era, or that it may have developed post-8th century CE after the Muslim invasions and medieval Hindu–Muslim wars. A sense of Hindu identity and the term Hindu appears in some texts dated between the 13th and 18th century in Sanskrit and Bengali. The 14th- and 18th-century Indian poets such as Vidyapati, Kabir, Tulsidas and Eknath used the phrase Hindu dharma (Hinduism) and contrasted it with Turaka dharma (Islam). The Christian friar Sebastiao Manrique used the term 'Hindu' in a religious context in 1649. In the 18th century, European merchants and colonists began to refer to the followers of Indian religions collectively as Hindus, in contrast to Mohamedans for groups such as Turks, Mughals and Arabs, who were adherents of Islam. By the mid-19th century, colonial orientalist texts further distinguished Hindus from Buddhists, Sikhs and Jains, but the colonial laws continued to consider all of them to be within the scope of the term Hindu until about the mid-20th century. Scholars state that the custom of distinguishing between Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs is a modern phenomenon.
At approximately 1.2 billion, Hindus are the world's third-largest religious group after Christians and Muslims. The vast majority of Hindus, approximately 966 million (94.3% of the global Hindu population), live in India, according to the 2011 Indian census. After India, the next nine countries with the largest Hindu populations are, in decreasing order: Nepal, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, the United States, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom. These together accounted for 99% of the world's Hindu population, and the remaining nations of the world combined had about 6 million Hindus as of 2010[update].
The word Hindu is an exonym. This word Hindu is derived from the Indo-Aryan and Sanskrit word Sindhu, which means "a large body of water", covering "river, ocean". It was used as the name of the Indus River and also referred to its tributaries. The actual term 'hindu' first occurs, states Gavin Flood, as "a Persian geographical term for the people who lived beyond the river Indus (Sanskrit: Sindhu)", more specifically in the 5th-century BCE, DNa inscription of Darius I. The Punjab region, called Sapta Sindhu in the Vedas, is called Hapta Hindu in Zend Avesta. The 6th-century BCE inscription of Darius I mentions the province of Hi[n]dush, referring to northwestern India. The people of India were referred to as Hinduvān and hindavī was used as the adjective for Indian language in the 8th century text Chachnama. According to D. N. Jha, the term 'Hindu' in these ancient records is an ethno-geographical term and did not refer to a religion.
The earliest known records of 'Hindu' with connotations of religion may be in the 7th-century CE Chinese text Records on the Western Regions by the Buddhist scholar Xuanzang. Xuanzang uses the transliterated term In-tu whose "connotation overflows in the religious" according to Arvind Sharma. While Xuanzang suggested that the term refers to the country named after the moon, another Buddhist scholar I-tsing contradicted the conclusion saying that In-tu was not a common name for the country.
Al-Biruni's 11th-century text Tarikh Al-Hind, and the texts of the Delhi Sultanate period use the term 'Hindu', where it includes all non-Islamic people such as Buddhists, and retains the ambiguity of being "a region or a religion".[need quotation to verify] The 'Hindu' community occurs as the amorphous 'Other' of the Muslim community in the court chronicles, according to the Indian historian Romila Thapar. The comparative religion scholar Wilfred Cantwell Smith notes that the term 'Hindu' retained its geographical reference initially: 'Indian', 'indigenous, local', virtually 'native'. Slowly, the Indian groups themselves started using the term, differentiating themselves and their "traditional ways" from those of the invaders.
The text Prithviraj Raso, by Chand Bardai, about the 1192 CE defeat of Prithviraj Chauhan at the hands of Muhammad Ghori, is full of references to "Hindus" and "Turks", and at one stage, says "both the religions have drawn their curved swords;" however, the date of this text is unclear and considered by most scholars to be more recent. In Islamic literature, 'Abd al-Malik Isami's Persian work, Futuhu's-salatin, composed in the Deccan under Bahmani rule in 1350, uses the word 'hindi' to mean Indian in the ethno-geographical sense and the word 'hindu' to mean 'Hindu' in the sense of a follower of the Hindu religion". The poet Vidyapati's Kirtilata (1380) uses the term Hindu in the sense of a religion, it contrasts the cultures of Hindus and Turks (Muslims) in a city and concludes "The Hindus and the Turks live close together; Each makes fun of the other's religion (dhamme)" albeit Naqshbandi Indian sufi inhabitations in Constantinople were often attributed as Hindular Tekkesi in Ottoman Turkish.
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Hindus
Hindus (Hindustani: [ˈɦɪndu] ⓘ; /ˈhɪnduːz/; also known as Sanātanīs) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism, also known by its endonym Sanātana Dharma. Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for people living in the Indian subcontinent.
It is assumed that the term "Hindu" traces back to Avestan scripture Vendidad which refers to land of seven rivers as Hapta Hendu which itself is a cognate to Sanskrit term Sapta Sindhuḥ. (The term Sapta Sindhuḥ is mentioned in Rig Veda and refers to a North western Indian region of seven rivers and to India as a whole.) The Greek cognates of the same terms are "Indus" (for the river) and "India" (for the land of the river). Likewise the Hebrew cognate hōd-dū refers to India mentioned in Hebrew Bible (Esther 1:1). The term "Hindu" also implied a geographic, ethnic or cultural identifier for people living in the Indian subcontinent around or beyond the Sindhu (Indus) River. By the 16th century CE, the term began to refer to residents of the subcontinent who were not Turkic or Muslims.
The historical development of Hindu self-identity within the local Indian population, in a religious or cultural sense, is unclear. Competing theories state that Hindu identity developed in the British colonial era, or that it may have developed post-8th century CE after the Muslim invasions and medieval Hindu–Muslim wars. A sense of Hindu identity and the term Hindu appears in some texts dated between the 13th and 18th century in Sanskrit and Bengali. The 14th- and 18th-century Indian poets such as Vidyapati, Kabir, Tulsidas and Eknath used the phrase Hindu dharma (Hinduism) and contrasted it with Turaka dharma (Islam). The Christian friar Sebastiao Manrique used the term 'Hindu' in a religious context in 1649. In the 18th century, European merchants and colonists began to refer to the followers of Indian religions collectively as Hindus, in contrast to Mohamedans for groups such as Turks, Mughals and Arabs, who were adherents of Islam. By the mid-19th century, colonial orientalist texts further distinguished Hindus from Buddhists, Sikhs and Jains, but the colonial laws continued to consider all of them to be within the scope of the term Hindu until about the mid-20th century. Scholars state that the custom of distinguishing between Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs is a modern phenomenon.
At approximately 1.2 billion, Hindus are the world's third-largest religious group after Christians and Muslims. The vast majority of Hindus, approximately 966 million (94.3% of the global Hindu population), live in India, according to the 2011 Indian census. After India, the next nine countries with the largest Hindu populations are, in decreasing order: Nepal, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, the United States, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom. These together accounted for 99% of the world's Hindu population, and the remaining nations of the world combined had about 6 million Hindus as of 2010[update].
The word Hindu is an exonym. This word Hindu is derived from the Indo-Aryan and Sanskrit word Sindhu, which means "a large body of water", covering "river, ocean". It was used as the name of the Indus River and also referred to its tributaries. The actual term 'hindu' first occurs, states Gavin Flood, as "a Persian geographical term for the people who lived beyond the river Indus (Sanskrit: Sindhu)", more specifically in the 5th-century BCE, DNa inscription of Darius I. The Punjab region, called Sapta Sindhu in the Vedas, is called Hapta Hindu in Zend Avesta. The 6th-century BCE inscription of Darius I mentions the province of Hi[n]dush, referring to northwestern India. The people of India were referred to as Hinduvān and hindavī was used as the adjective for Indian language in the 8th century text Chachnama. According to D. N. Jha, the term 'Hindu' in these ancient records is an ethno-geographical term and did not refer to a religion.
The earliest known records of 'Hindu' with connotations of religion may be in the 7th-century CE Chinese text Records on the Western Regions by the Buddhist scholar Xuanzang. Xuanzang uses the transliterated term In-tu whose "connotation overflows in the religious" according to Arvind Sharma. While Xuanzang suggested that the term refers to the country named after the moon, another Buddhist scholar I-tsing contradicted the conclusion saying that In-tu was not a common name for the country.
Al-Biruni's 11th-century text Tarikh Al-Hind, and the texts of the Delhi Sultanate period use the term 'Hindu', where it includes all non-Islamic people such as Buddhists, and retains the ambiguity of being "a region or a religion".[need quotation to verify] The 'Hindu' community occurs as the amorphous 'Other' of the Muslim community in the court chronicles, according to the Indian historian Romila Thapar. The comparative religion scholar Wilfred Cantwell Smith notes that the term 'Hindu' retained its geographical reference initially: 'Indian', 'indigenous, local', virtually 'native'. Slowly, the Indian groups themselves started using the term, differentiating themselves and their "traditional ways" from those of the invaders.
The text Prithviraj Raso, by Chand Bardai, about the 1192 CE defeat of Prithviraj Chauhan at the hands of Muhammad Ghori, is full of references to "Hindus" and "Turks", and at one stage, says "both the religions have drawn their curved swords;" however, the date of this text is unclear and considered by most scholars to be more recent. In Islamic literature, 'Abd al-Malik Isami's Persian work, Futuhu's-salatin, composed in the Deccan under Bahmani rule in 1350, uses the word 'hindi' to mean Indian in the ethno-geographical sense and the word 'hindu' to mean 'Hindu' in the sense of a follower of the Hindu religion". The poet Vidyapati's Kirtilata (1380) uses the term Hindu in the sense of a religion, it contrasts the cultures of Hindus and Turks (Muslims) in a city and concludes "The Hindus and the Turks live close together; Each makes fun of the other's religion (dhamme)" albeit Naqshbandi Indian sufi inhabitations in Constantinople were often attributed as Hindular Tekkesi in Ottoman Turkish.