Despite our official name as Bharat, we are referred to as India. Even Pakis are called by the name they invented. We should be called by our ancient name and not by "India" which the British named to 5 other places around the world (red Indians, west indians, Canadian indians, south american Indians etc).
Wonderful. Nobody can put it better than this. Yep, even the pakis are better in this regard.
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Virendra,
great post. Cheers.
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Generally, the legend says that the name 'Bharatha' came because of the Emperor named Bharatha, son of Dushyanta and Shakuntala.
Etymology of 'Bharatha' can be divided into: Bha + Ratha.
Ratha means one who has rathi(interest/passion).
Bha means light. It also means fire.
So, etymologically 'Bharatha' means one who has passion for light/fire.
There are several meanings to the above sentence:
a) Indians worship the holy fire of Yagya, so they are called Bharathas.
b) Indians worship the holy light of Sun, so they are called Bharathas.
c) Indians worship the light(which symbolically represents Truth/Satya, immortality/amrita and freedom/moksha), so they are called Bharathas.
There is a famous verses in this regard:
Astoma sad gamaya (From untruth lead me to truth),
Tamosorma jyothirgamaya (From darkness lead to light),
Mrityurmoa Amritamgayama (From death lead to immortality).
In the above verses, it is clear that light represents truth and immortality.
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BTW, what does 'India' mean etymologically? Why were people of Bharatha called 'Indians' by the British? It seems, they named many others also as Indians. What similarity did the British perceive in those people with the people of Bharatha?