Q1.
But when do we come across a name for the entire Indian Subcontinent?
Answer
The chapter answers honestly: we cannot fix an exact date, “because ancient Indian texts are difficult to date”. What we can do is put the evidence in order, from the least datable to the most datable.
| Step | Source | Name used | How firmly can it be dated? |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Ṛig Veda | ‘Sapta Sindhava’ | Several thousand years old — but it names only the north-west region, not the whole Subcontinent |
| 2 | The Mahābhārata | ‘Bhāratavarṣha’ and ‘Jambudvīpa’ | Scholars generally agree the poem was written from a few centuries BCE onward — so the name is old, but the date is a range, not a year |
| 3 | An inscription of Aśhoka | ‘Jambudvīpa’ | About 250 BCE — a firm date, because an inscription is carved at a known time. This is our first solid proof |
| 4 | The Viṣhṇu Purāṇa | ‘Bhārata’ | “A few centuries later”, when ‘Bhārata’ had become the name generally used for the whole Subcontinent |
So the short answer: the first names for the entire Subcontinent are Bhāratavarṣha and Jambudvīpa in the Mahābhārata, from a few centuries BCE onward; and the earliest firmly dated use is Aśhoka's inscription of about 250 BCE, where ‘Jambudvīpa’ covers the whole of India — including what is today Bangladesh, Pakistan and parts of Afghanistan.
Why a text is harder to date than an inscription: a poem like the Mahābhārata was composed, recited, added to and copied over many centuries, so it has no single birthday. An inscription is cut into stone once, by a ruler whose reign we can date, and it has not changed since. That is why one line of Aśhoka's stone is worth more, for dating, than many pages of a text — a point the previous chapter on Sources of History also made.