“Hindu” and “Sanatan”

One tradition, two names — one given by outsiders and a river, the other drawn from the tradition’s own scriptures. How they arose tells a story three thousand years long.

Most religions are named after a founder or a central idea. This one, for most of its history, didn’t need a name at all. People called themselves Shaiva or Vaishnava, followers of this teacher or that temple, members of a village and a family with its own customs. The names Hindu and Sanatan Dharma each arrived later — and each says something different about how the tradition sees itself.

It begins with a river

The story starts with the great river of the north-west, which the Rig Veda calls Sindhu. In Sanskrit sindhu also simply means “river” or “sea,” and the Vedic homeland is remembered as sapta sindhavaḥ, the land of seven rivers.

Neighbouring peoples heard that word and carried it into their own languages. Follow it across the map — tap each step:

So at first, “Hindu” meant a place, not a faith — roughly “the people beyond the Indus.” It was a name given from outside, by people looking in.

From a place to a people

Over the following two thousand years, the word slowly shifted its meaning. When Persian-speaking and Turkic Muslim rulers established kingdoms in India from the eleventh century onwards, “Hindu” came to mark not only geography but difference: the people of India who were not Muslims.

And gradually, Indians began to use the word for themselves. Some milestones:

  1. c. 500 BCE“Hindu” in Persian inscriptionsDarius I lists Hindu as a province of the Achaemenid empire — a purely geographical name.
  2. 11th–13th c.“Hindu” as the non-Muslim populationPersian writers such as al-Biruni describe the religion and learning of the “Hindus” of al-Hind.
  3. 14th c.Hindu kings name themselvesRulers of the Vijayanagara empire in the south take the title Hindu-rāya-suratrāṇa, “sultan among Hindu kings.”
  4. 16th c.A Hindu voice in debateThe Marathi saint Eknath writes the Hindu–Turk Saṃvād, a dialogue between a Hindu and a Muslim — the word now clearly names a religious identity.
  5. c. 1800“Hinduism” enters EnglishBritish writers add the “-ism.” The reformer Raja Ram Mohan Roy uses “Hindooism” in 1816.
  6. 1870s onwardCounted in the censusColonial censuses sort Indians into fixed religions, often treating “Hindu” as everyone not otherwise classified.
  7. TodayA self-chosen identityOver a billion people call themselves Hindu — in India, Nepal, Bali, Mauritius, the Caribbean, Malaysia and across the world.
A scholarly debate

Some historians have argued that “Hinduism” as a single religion was largely constructed in the colonial period, by grouping many distinct traditions under one label. Others, such as David Lorenzen, point to pre-colonial sources like Eknath to show that a shared Hindu identity existed well before the British. Most scholars today accept something in between: the shared identity is old, but the modern idea of “a religion called Hinduism” with fixed boundaries took shape in the nineteenth century.

Sanatan Dharma: a name from within

The phrase sanātana dharma is ancient, but for most of history it was a description, not a name. It meant “the eternal law” or “the timeless way” — the order that holds the world together. You find it in the epics and the law books:

कुलक्षये प्रणश्यन्ति कुलधर्माः सनातनाः । kula-kṣaye praṇaśyanti kula-dharmāḥ sanātanāḥ When a family is destroyed, its eternal traditions perish. Bhagavad Gītā 1.40

Interestingly, the same idea appears in Buddhist scripture too. The Dhammapada teaches that hatred is never ended by hatred, only by love — and calls this esa dhammo sanantano, “this is the eternal law” (verse 5). The phrase belonged to the whole Indian world before it became the name of one tradition.

Its use as a name took off in the nineteenth century. As reform movements such as the Arya Samaj called for a return to the Vedas alone, more traditional Hindus organised themselves as Sanātanīs — defenders of the “eternal” tradition in full, with its temples, images, Puranas and festivals. Sanatan Dharma Sabhas sprang up across north India in the 1880s and 1890s. Around 1903, the Central Hindu College in Benares published textbooks titled Sanātana Dharma for its students.

The name spread because it said something people wanted to say: that their tradition was not one religion among many, founded at a moment in history, but an expression of truths that have always been and always will be.

Two names, two emphases

Neither name is “wrong.” Each puts the weight in a different place:

  • Points to: a people, a land and a living culture.
  • Origin: given from outside, then embraced from within.
  • Strengths: universally recognised; used in law, census and everyday speech; names a community as well as a faith.
  • Limitations: it describes where rather than what; and its boundaries were sometimes drawn by others.

Many people use both comfortably, and this site does too: “Sanatan Dharma” when speaking of the teaching, “Hindu” when speaking of people, communities and history.

Other names you will meet

The tradition has always had many names for itself, or parts of itself. Tap to explore:

वैदिकVaidika dharmaThe Vedic way

Emphasises the authority of the Vedas. Classical philosophers called schools that accepted the Vedas āstika, and those that didn’t (Buddhists, Jains, materialists) nāstika.

सम्प्रदायSampradaya namesShaiva, Vaishnava, Shakta…

For many practitioners the first answer to “what is your religion?” was, and still is, their tradition: devotee of Shiva, of Vishnu, of the Goddess, or follower of a particular sampradāya or guru.

சைவம்Saivam & Indu samayamIn Tamil

Many Tamil Hindus — in Tamil Nadu, Sri Lanka and Malaysia — call their faith Saivam (Shaivism), reflecting the strength of Shaiva Siddhanta in the Tamil world. The general Tamil term for the Hindu religion is Indu samayam (இந்து சமயம்).

मानवMānava dharmaThe human way

“The dharma of humanity.” Used by teachers who stress that the tradition’s core principles — truth, non-harming, self-knowledge — apply to every human being. Classically, mānava dharma meant “Manu’s dharma” — the Manusmṛti’s full title is Mānava Dharmaśāstra; the universal “human” sense is modern.

When names carry politics

Names are never only names. It helps to know that both words can carry different weight in different places:

A seeker doesn’t need to settle these debates — only to understand that when someone uses either word, they may mean something slightly different from you.

Check what you’ve picked up:

Quick check

The word “Hindu” originally named…

The Sindhu (Indus) river — via the Persian pronunciation “Hindu.”

“India” and “Hindu” come from…

Both descend from Sindhu: via Persian to “Hindu,” and via Persian and Greek to “Indos” and “India.”

Before the 19th century, “sanātana dharma” was mainly…

It described the timeless order — even the Buddhist Dhammapada uses the same phrase. It became a name during the 19th-century revival.

॥ Pause and reflect

  1. Which name feels more natural to you — and why do you think that is?
  2. If someone asked “What is your religion?”, what would you answer? Would it be a name, a tradition, a deity, or a way of life?
  3. Does it matter that a name was first given by outsiders, if people have since made it their own?

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Key terms on this page

Sources & further reading