dhammadit

It is not true to say that the Hindu was first used by Arabs. Hindu is a Prakrit form of Sindhu and has most likely come from Saurashtra where Somnath becomes Homnath and Sorath becomes Horath. The term Hindu is used in inscriptions of Darius I (520 b.c.) to represent a nation. Dhammadit

Dear Kalyan, Sasha, The following may be of interest: Max Muler says in his "Science of Languages" : "Zorastrians migrated from India to the North-West and whose religion has been preserved to us in the Zend Avesta, though in fragments only." He further says, "The Zorastrians were a colony from India".

In reply to Sasha, Avesta is a holy book of the Parsis. Zarathurashtra is the originator. As per Western sources, Zarathurashtra was from Bactria and NOT from Persia or Iran. The word Haptahindu is therefore not Persian. Bactria is generally identified with Balkh on account of similarity of sound. On the other hand, the fact that haptahindu is used for saptasindhu, Zarathurashtra might have been a Surashtran as replacing S with H is acommon practice in Saurashtra.