Bhāratavarṣha and Jambudvīpa

But when do we first meet a name for the whole Subcontinent? That is not easy to answer, because ancient Indian texts are difficult to date: they were copied and recopied by hand for centuries.

The Mahābhārata uses two terms, 'Bhāratavarṣha' and 'Jambudvīpa'. Scholars generally agree that this long poem was written from a few centuries BCE onwards.

'Bhāratavarṣha' clearly covers the whole Subcontinent, and the text names many of its rivers and peoples. It means 'the country of the Bharatas'. 'Bharata' first appears in the Ṛig Veda, as the name of one of the main Vedic groups of people. Later writings mention several kings named Bharata.

'Jambudvīpa' means 'the island of the fruit of the jamun tree'. The jamun is a common tree native to India, also called the jambul or Malabar plum tree. 'Jambudvīpa' came to mean the Indian Subcontinent: a whole land named after a fruit tree that grows all over it.

For a date, we get a good clue from the emperor Aśhoka. For now we can take his date as about 250 BCE. He left many inscriptions, words cut into rocks and pillars.

In one of them he uses the name 'Jambudvīpa' for the whole of India, which then included what are today Bangladesh, Pakistan and parts of Afghanistan. A stone inscription is carved once and cannot be recopied, so this proves that by about 250 BCE the whole land had a single name.