What is the ancient name of India?
In ancient times, India was divided into smaller kingdoms like Kalinga, Magadh, Gandhar and so on. But most of these kingdoms followed the Aryan culture, Vedic rituals and religion and similar political set ups. You could say they were all part of one civilization. That is why, the concept of India was always there- from the time of Alexender’s invasion to invasions by Sakas, Huns, Pathans, Mughals- all of them invaded ‘India’. The travellers like Hieun Tsang, Fa Huen, Ibn Batuta talked about their visits to India. And that is why, while we do agree that it was the British who gave the final shape to what we today know as India, much before they came- Christopher Columbus had set out to ‘discover’ India. The British, French, Portuguese and Dutch all came to the land they had already known to be India because they had heard about it’s riches. And from ancient times, many kings have tried to be emperor of this whole land that together formed India- Samudragupta, Kanishka, later the Mugha
