@GTAmario
The word
Hindu is derived from the
Sanskrit word
Sindhu, the historic local appellation for the
Indus River in the northwestern part of the
Indian subcontinent.
[13] and is first mentioned in the
Rig Veda[14] The usage of the word
Hindu was further popularized by the
Arabic term
al-Hind referring to the land of the people who live across river Indus.
[15] and the Persian term Hindū referring to all Indians. By the 13th century,
Hindustān emerged as a popular alternative
name of India, meaning the "land of
Hindus".
[16]
Originally,
Hindu was a secular term which was used to describe all inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent (or
Hindustan) irrespective of their religious affiliation. It occurs sporadically in Sanskrit texts such as the later Rajataranginis of Kashmir (Hinduka, c. 1450), some 16th-18th century
Bengali Gaudiya Vaishnava texts, including
Chaitanya Charitamrita and
Chaitanya Bhagavata, usually to contrast Hindus with
Yavanas or
Mlecchas.
[17] It was only towards the end of the 18th century that the European merchants and colonists referred collectively to the followers of
Indian religions as
Hindus. Eventually, it came to define a precisely religious identity that includes any person of
Indian origin who neither practiced
Abrahamic religions nor non-Vedic Indian religions, such as
Jainism,
Buddhism,
Sikhism, or tribal (Adivasi) religions, thereby encompassing a wide range of religious beliefs and practices related to
Sanātana Dharma.
[18][19]
Source: Wikipedia