On 7/13/07, shiv sastry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
So the people of old India were just people who did not see themselves as "India" or "Hindu" which were both externally derived names.
In particular derived from the Persian pronunciation of al-Sind, no? But national, religious, ethnic or cultural borders are necessarily fluid in time and space. It's all too easy to pick the time and place that suits one's agenda. Unfortunately it's also easy for people who disagree with you to pick equally convincing times and places that support their views. Religion seems particularly susceptible to this particular problem, religions tend to grow, merge, and mutate, and when defining a territory by religion the practical effect seems to be to choose the times and places that maximize the area of influence of the religion under discussion. -- Charles
