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Why indian Ocean named after India?

• Message 1.Β 

  Posted by pavan21us (U2377736) on Thursday, 3rd November 2005

  Does anyone know why Indian Ocean has been named after India?They are is no other ocean that is named after a country or a region.Any thoughts?

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• Message 2

  , in reply to message 1.

  Posted by Elistan (U1872011) on Friday, 4th November 2005

  Because the brits named it, and india was theirs.
  
  English Channel
  Irish Sea
  Indian Ocean
  
  See a pattern?

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• Message 3

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  Posted by pavan21us (U2377736) on Friday, 4th November 2005

  Indian ocean has been named even before india was made British colony.
  
  I feel it might have been named as most of the countries wished to traded with india and was attracted to the wealth of ancient india.Most of then from Europeon and African countries used to come to india tru this ocean and so should have been named that way.
  
  Here is a link that explains Indian Ocean history
  

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• Message 4

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  Posted by Elistan (U1872011) on Friday, 4th November 2005

  Well in that case, would India as a political as opposed to geographical concept have any meaning? Is the country we know today not named after the geography rather than vice versa? As If Europe was a country.

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• Message 5

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  Posted by pavan21us (U2377736) on Saturday, 5th November 2005

  India used to be the same place right from the begining of the culture for more than 10,000 years..Since this civilsation started on the banks of river indus,this civilisation used to be called as indus valley civilisation and the place as india.
  
  So the ancient time the political,geographical, economical India is the same current india.The only change is that couple of new nations were seperated from india under british rule.The places of Pakistan,Balngadesh,Srilanka,part of afghanistan were also ruled by indian kings and they are altogether independent nations in the current days.

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• Message 6

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  Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Sunday, 6th November 2005

  Re: Message 5.
  
  Pavan,
  
  read the interesting American site you mentioned in one of your messages.
  
  Origin of the word "India". India comes from the river Indus. Sapta-Sindhu: land of seven rivers. later called by the locals: Sindhu. Persian explorers converted it to Hindu. The Greeks made Indos of it. The Latin form was Indus. The subcontinent was named by the Romans as India.
  
  I did some research for the first use of the name Indian ocean but didn't found something. However I "think" that the ancients already called the ocean near the Indian subcontinent: Indian sea?
  
  In any case in the maps of the early European seafarer it was already called Indian ocean or sea: for instance:
  
  Lopo Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔm : Portolan chart of the Indian Ocean. Lisbon, 1518-1519. manuscript on vellum: MARE INDICUM.
  
  Jodocus Hondius: Chart of the world showing the circumnavigation by Francis Drake. Published in London, 1590. Copper engraving: MAR DI INDIA
  
  Jan Baptist Vrients: World map, published in Antwerp, 1596. Copper engraving: OCEANUS INDICUS
  
  Pavan, it came on these boards again and again. "People" dated the Harrapa or Indus Valey Culture at more than 10,000 years ago. In all the "honest" history writing I always met the same descriptions:
  
  Although agriculture seems to have come late to India, arriving sometime around 5,000 BC, India was one of the first regions to give birth to civilisation. Only a few centuries after the first Mesopotamian cities sprung up, a people living along the northern reaches of the Indus river discovered urbanisation, metal work and writing. Not known yet why, but the Indus Valley Culture disappeared without a trace between 1800 and 1700.
  
  Pavan, we had here during the last three years on these boards, some Afro-centrists, Greco-centrists, lately: Macedonian-centrists, one Hindu-centrist, (even in my opinion British-centrists, not to speak about Norman and Anglo-Saxon centrists and Welsh-centrists (big laugh)). Are you by any chance an Indian-centrist?
  
  Kind regards and welcome to the boards.
  
  

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• Message 7

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  Posted by nordsider (U2153010) on Sunday, 6th November 2005

  Does anyone know why Indian Ocean has been named after India?They are is no other ocean that is named after a country or a region.Any thoughts?Β 
  
  I found this item ~ and hope that it helps:
  
  The word India is the form used by Europeans over the ages.
  
  Sindhu is also sanskrit term for Ocean and for any large water body. It would specifically mean the modern river Indus, if ancient Indic originated there. It could just mean "water dwellers" as well.
  

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• Message 8

  , in reply to message 6.

  Posted by nordsider (U2153010) on Sunday, 6th November 2005

  
  Kind regards and welcome to the boards.Β 
  
  Paul,
  
  I know that the above comment is not in regards to me; but I just want to comment, that I've read your contributions to this MB in the past, and I have formed the opinion that you are a gentleman and a scholar.

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• Message 9

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  Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Monday, 7th November 2005

  I am 100% on what Paul Ryckier said, and yes I admit being greco-centriscist (not in a negative sense and irrelevantly of my origins, afterall most greco-centriscists are actually non-greeks!) but not in the sense that 'everything started here and we are the oldest' but more in the sense that 'whatever we are today we owe it largely to them' and 'whatever we say has been said and done and covered by them'.
  
  to complete Ryckier's approach on India... personally I am more close on the approach that says India had urban life since 9,000 BC (latest findings and that we will go further back in future). Greeks knew the Indians long before the Mycenean years and they had a name for them other than Indoi (in plural)... that was Ethiopea. Greeks were correctly saying that Ethiopeans live in the east and the west - most traditional historians believed that Greeks were referring to a fantastic tribe living on the edges of the world but in fact it had nothing to do with that:
  
  Indians (Ethiopeans) in the east and west referred to the fact that a large nulber of Indians migrated around 10,000 from India by sea to south S. Arabia (still southern Arabs are anthropologically almost identical to Indians), and then to Somalia and Ethiopean were they lixed with the local populations (thus giving the ancient Ethiopeans of east Africa and the kingdoms that now some want to call 'the black Pharaos'... yes these people were of dark colours but we must not mix them with western african tribes. Many of the Ethiopeans in later eras (after 5000 BC) went up to Egypt - establising themselves in large numbers and also expandeded in the northwest - reaching Morocco. That is why Greeks were saying that Ethiopeans live also in the west.
  
  Indians were never united in one nation, instead there were numerous kingdoms fighting each other - still today despite the expansion of the HIndu language there are so many different tribes, nations, and languages in India (not to mention the different writting systems) and with a population that reaches 1 billion (nearly 3 times Europe!), India is rightfully called a subcontinent.
  
  The name India was widely used to describe all the subcontinent without any ethnic or other sense (only geographic). The name 'Indian Ocean' I think was used also by Alexander's chartographers when his navy made the 'periplous' (go around coast to coast) of Asia. Afterall this would be the natural name for anyone European or not that made a map of the area. When Portuguese Basco de Gama made the round of Africa and reached India by sea it was all natural to use the name 'Indian Ocean' for the ocean that lies south of India!
  
  The state of India founded in late 1940s was naturally named India. India and Indian Ocean were named by different and various people but they all refer to the river Hindus a river that must have been habitated since the dawn of mankind.

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• Message 10

  , in reply to message 9.

  Posted by pavan21us (U2377736) on Monday, 7th November 2005

  I do agree most of the stuff here..But the current India is the same old that was refrerred in the ancient times.When Greeks
  /Europeons /Egyptians referred India,they referred to the civlisation and culture.There was no nation existed with the name as india.India was never a single nation before british.It used to be in pieces and ruled by native rulers.
  
  But the interesting note is that the India is the only civilisation in the world which is able to retain the civilsation with not much of changes.

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• Message 11

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  Posted by aikimimi (U2430228) on Monday, 7th November 2005

  It is called the indian ocean because it's next to India. I think.

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• Message 12

  , in reply to message 8.

  Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Tuesday, 8th November 2005

  Re: Message 8.
  
  Nordsider,
  
  thank you very much for this kind reply.
  
  Best wishes.

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• Message 13

  , in reply to message 10.

  Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Tuesday, 8th November 2005

  Pavan,
  
  Ancient Greeks did use the name Ethiopean not to describe a nation but to describe a generic anthropologic race - the Indo-Dravidians that expanded from India it seems till western north Africa. In fact this was a very successful name used precisely and the explanation of the myth (preciously thought only as a myth was nicely given by modern scientists).
  
  The name India was always used by anyone in a generic sense also describing the people that lived in (or near) the subcontinent. Usually that did not even have a generic cultural sense... it was a merely geographic term. Nobody said the opposite to that.

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• Message 14

  , in reply to message 10.

  Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Tuesday, 8th November 2005

  Re: Message 10.
  
  Pavan,
  
  I read in the Dutch translation (2004) of the "Encyclopedia of the Ancient World" (2000) that you with some good-will could speak from a continuous civilisation: 6500 BC farmers in the Indus valley. From 3200 till 2600 Earlier Harappa culture. Around 2000 BC end of the Harappa culture. The culture died out, but still Post-Harappa culture. This Late-Harappa culture seems to be a part of the culture that originated at the Ganges some 1000 years later.
  
  I will cover it more in depth tomorrow.
  
  Kind regards.

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• Message 15

  , in reply to message 14.

  Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Saturday, 12th November 2005

  Addendum message 14.
  
  Pavan,
  
  I think I explained the backbone of my thoughts in message 14. Have no time for the moment, but if you want some more information, feel free to ask.
  
  Kind regards.

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