“Sanjeev Sanyal | The making of Bharatavarsha”, India Today, September 25, 2023:
“This country has been known as Bharat or Bharatavarsha for a very long time. The span literally ranges across thousands of years. The name has two origin stories: an older Vedic one and a later Pauranic/Jain one. Interestingly, the origins of the names Bharat and India are also closely linked.
The Rig Veda, an early Bronze Age text (more than 5,000 years old), mentions a tribe called Bharata (also Trutsu) that lived on the banks of the Saraswati river in what is modern-day Haryana. They called their homeland Sapta Sindhu or the Land of Seven Rivers. These seven rivers relate to the Saraswati and its system of tributaries, and should not be confused with those that gave their name to Panjab.
The Rig Veda tells us that the Bharatas were attacked by a coalition of 10 tribes from the West. Led by their chieftain Sudas and Rishi Vashishtha, the Bharata army crossed the Saraswati and headed out to meet the enemy….”
Read the full article at Indiatoday.com
