Hindu Dharma or Sanatan Dharma

I am sure all of you as a followers of Hinduism have heard a word “Sanatan” and do you often wonder if this is something other than Hindu Dharma.

Let me, in my humble way, put my way of thinking on this subject and of course many great Hindu philosophers and historians have similar views well before me.

Sanatan means eternal, never beginning nor ending. Dharma is from dhri, meaning to hold together, to sustain. Thus, sanatan dharma refer to the eternal natural way the never beginning and never ending flow of the whole being.

Then, what is Hindu or Hinduism?

For ancient Persians the word Hindu was simply referred to the Vedic culture, religion and practices of the people who lived other side of the Sindhu River. In the ancient Avestan Persian language “S” grammatically became “H”, thus Persians pronounced the name of this river Hindhu rather than Sindhu. The currently used word Hindu is itself a distortion of the Persian word Hindhu, which in turn a distortion of the term Sindhu which itself is referring to a river and not to a religion.

Hindu/Hinduism words are not evident in any of the ancient Vedas, Puranas, Ramayana or Bhagavad Gita. The word these holy books uses is “dharma” and the word dharma is found repeatedly throughout the entire Vedic scriptures but one will not find a word Hindu or Hinduism. However, mention of Vishawa Dharma or Sanatan Dharma is everywhere.

By referring to something as “Sanatan” idea is that it will never come to an end but it has always had existence because the Brahman, the Atman, Prakriti(Nature) , Satya, the Vedas and Dharma all have necessary existence. They always have been and they shall always be….

Out of this Sanatan dharma emerged modern Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism and while significantly effecting many other religion and traditions, which also followed much later. The word Hindu and Hinduism are said to be a more recent development (mostly in the past 250 years). Actually, it was not until as late as the 19^th century, under the British rule that these dual terms even acquired any legal significance on a national scale in India.

In the end, I would say the term Hindu or Hinduism is a word mistakenly created to describe a culture in a purely ethnic, national and social context and these words will continue to be used as a matter of convenience. However, we must always do our utmost to use the much more meaningful and beautiful name SANATAN DHARMA when referring to our religion.

Our religion is SANATAN DHARMA…..

Any comments on this subject are most welcome