Sapta Sindhava, and the regions of the Mahābhārata

There are four Vedas: the Ṛig Veda, the Yajur Veda, the Sāma Veda and the Atharva Veda. The Ṛig Veda is India's most ancient text; it is several thousand years old.

It calls the northwest region of the Subcontinent 'Sapta Sindhava', which means 'the land of the seven rivers'. The word 'Sindhava' comes from 'Sindhu', the name of the Indus River, or sometimes of a river in general.

Keep the word Sindhu in mind: later in this chapter it travels out of India and comes back as 'India'. And notice that Sapta Sindhava names one region, the northwest, not the whole land.

Later, names for other parts of India appear in the literature. The Mahābhārata, one of India's most famous texts, lists many regions, such as:

• Kāshmīra (more or less today's Kashmir),
• Kurukṣhetra (parts of today's Haryana),
• Vanga (parts of Bengal),
• Prāgjyotiṣha (roughly today's Assam),
• Kaccha (today's Kutch),
• Kerala (more or less today's Kerala).

Some of these names you still use every day.

The book's map adds many more: Kāmboja and Gandhāra in the far northwest, Madra and Matsya, Avanti and Vidarbha, Chola and Pāṇḍya in the far south, Kāśhi, Kosala, Magadha, Anga and Kalinga in the east, Pañchāla, Surāṣhṭra and Draviḍa.

You do not need to remember them all, but notice that together they cover the whole Subcontinent. Long before anyone named the whole land, all its parts were known and named.