Before empires carved their names into maps or scholars coined terms for civilisations, the river we now call the Indus was already flowing — silently shaping the destiny of South Asia. Its name, like its waters, has travelled a long and complex journey. The tale of how the River Indus got its name is not just a linguistic curiosity. It is a mirror reflecting conquests, cultural exchange, and the strange way history remembers what came before — but also what it tries to forget.
Long before the term “Indus” existed, the river was known as Sindhu — and to us, it always was and always will be. In the hymns of the Rigveda, dating back over three thousand years, Sindhu was more than just a river — it was a force of nature. Majestic, vast, and life-giving, it represented order and fertility in a land of shifting sands and seasonal uncertainty. The word simply meant “river,” but in the context of our soil, it was the river — the spine of early Indo-Aryan settlement, the heartbeat of ancient culture, the very lifeline of what is today Pakistan.
When Persian empires expanded eastward, they reached this great river and transformed Sindhu into Hinduš, not understanding what they were renaming. To them, it was a border; to us, it was home. Their inability to pronounce the ‘s’ was more than phonetic — it marked the beginning of a long tradition of outsiders naming what was not theirs. From Hinduš came Hind, and from Hind, eventually, came India. But none of these names were born of the people who actually lived along this river’s banks. They were projected onto it.
The Greeks inherited this distortion. During Alexander the Great’s campaign in the 4th century BCE, they called it Indos and the surrounding land India. For them, the river was the edge of the known world, a place of mystery and myth. But for us, it was not legend — it was the centre. It fed our fields, carried our history, sustained our people. What they called Indos, and what Latin would later canonise as Indus, was nothing more than the Sindhu wearing foreign robes. And yet, it was this version of the name that came to dominate maps, textbooks, and eventually global memory.
Through Roman adoption and colonial repetition, Indus became entrenched in Western scholarship. India — a name built on a misheard river — became a nation. But the river, in reality, lies within Pakistan’s borders. Its course, its cradle, its civilisation, its meaning — all rooted here. We did not take the name from anyone. It was taken from us. Indus is our inheritance, not theirs. The twisting of its name through Greek and Persian tongues cannot erase the fact that the source, the strength, the soul of the Sindhu belongs to this land.
It is time we reminded the world — and perhaps ourselves — that the people of Sindh, of Punjab, of the entire Indus basin, are the true inheritors of this name. It is not merely a geographical term. It is a historical claim. The word Hindu, the root of an entire religious identity today, began as a geographical mispronunciation of a river that flows through Pakistan. The land of al-Hind, as Muslim chroniclers called it, lay east of the river. But the river itself, the Sindhu, was always ours.
This river shaped the contours of empire, of migration, of language. But more than that, it shaped us. It is not just a witness to our history — it is the reason that history exists at all. Mohenjo-daro rose from its banks, and with it the earliest known expressions of urban planning, writing, and spirituality in the subcontinent. Long before Delhi or Agra or Varanasi claimed grandeur, our river had already birthed civilisation. And even today, it flows — stubbornly, defiantly, across the length of our country.
To call it Indus is to nod to the colonial cartographers. To call it Sindhu is to reclaim its truth. That name still lives — in the province of Sindh, in our languages, in our songs. But it must also live in our pride. The identity tied to the Indus River is not just historical — it is political. As regional narratives seek to overwrite and absorb, we must remind the world: the Sindhu is not a borrowed term. It is a birthright.
The journey from Sindhu to Indus is not merely etymological — it is territorial. It is cultural. It is sovereign. The name is a witness to how power distorts and redefines, but it is also a key to resistance. For in remembering what it was once called, we remember who we were — and who we still are. Our claim to the river is not through conquest or cartography. It is through continuity.
So the next time one speaks of the Indus — whether in textbooks, political speeches, or foreign policy briefings — let them also speak of Sindhu. Let them understand that the river’s real name flows not just through soil, but through language, memory, and belonging. And let it be clear: the river that gave a continent its name gives Pakistan its soul. The Sindhu is ours. The Indus belongs here.
