India, That Is Bharat – Class 6 Social Science Chapter 5 Notes & NCERT PDF

The Big Questions

"In India at a very early time the spiritual and cultural unity was made complete and became the very stuff of the life of all this great surge of humanity between the Himalayas and the two seas." — Sri Aurobindo

Introduction

The chapter opens with a carving from the north gate of the Great Sanchi Stupa (Fig. 5.1), a scene of rural India about 2,300 years ago. Today, India is a modern nation with defined borders, states and population. But 500, 2,000 or 5,000 years ago it was very different. The region we call the Indian Subcontinent has had many names and shifting boundaries. We learn about them from ancient texts, travellers' and pilgrims' accounts, and inscriptions.

The physical map (Fig. 5.2) shows the Subcontinent's natural boundaries: the Himalayas in the north and the seas on the west, east and south. It also shows great rivers: the Indus, Ganga, Yamuna, Brahmaputra, Narmada, Tapti, Mahanadi, Godavari, Krishna and Kaveri.

Key Concepts

1. How Indians named India

Sapta Sindhava in the Ṛig Veda

Regions in the Mahābhārata. The Mahābhārata lists many regions, including:

Together these cover the whole Subcontinent (Fig. 5.4).

Names for the whole Subcontinent. The Mahābhārata, written from a few centuries BCE onward, uses two names:

Emperor Aśhoka (about 250 BCE) used Jambudvīpa in an inscription for the whole of India. In his time, this included today's Bangladesh, Pakistan and parts of Afghanistan.

Bhārata in the Viṣhṇu Purāṇa. A few centuries later, Bhārata became the common name. The Viṣhṇu Purāṇa says:

uttaram yat samudrasya himādreścaiva dakṣiṇam, varṣam tad bhāratam nāma ...

"The country that lies north of the ocean and south of the snowy mountains is called Bhārata."

In north India it is usually written 'Bharat', and in south India often 'Bharatam'.

A Tamil poem, about 2,000 years old, praises a king known "from [Cape] Kumari in the south, from the great mountain in the north, from the oceans on the east and on the west". Ancient Indians knew their geography well!

The Constitution: The Indian Constitution, which came into force in 1950, begins with the phrase "India, that is Bharat". The Hindi version says "Bhārat arthāth India".

2. How foreigners named India

Most foreign names come from *Sindhu* (the Indus):

Xuanzang (earlier spelt Hiuen Tsang) travelled from China to India in the 7th century CE. He met scholars, collected Buddhist texts, and after 17 years returned home to translate them from Sanskrit into Chinese.

Many names of India: Persian Hindu, Greek Indoi/Indike, Chinese Yindu/Tianzhu, Arabic & Persian Hind/Hindustān, Latin and English India, French Inde.

Activities in the Chapter

Key Terms

Connect to Today

Our passports say "Republic of India" and "भारत गणराज्य". The name of your country carries thousands of years of history.

Common Mistakes

Questions and Activities: Hints

True/False: Ṛig Veda describes entire India (F); Viṣhṇu Purāṇa describes the entire Subcontinent (T); Aśhoka's Jambudvīpa included today's India, parts of Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan (T); Mahābhārata lists Kashmir, Kutch and Kerala (T); 'Hindustān' first in a Greek inscription (F, it was Persian); Persian 'Hindu' = religion (F); 'Bhārata' given by foreigners (F). For "Why did people travel to India?", think of trade, learning, pilgrimage (the land of the Buddha), conquest and curiosity.