Yes, these are Iranian names. I could not tell when and how they have come in Indian lands, but Punjab is in Persian Panj-aab - "Five Waters", i.e. five rivers - Indus and its tributaries (Punjab probably is an Urdu pronunciation, I don't know). Together with Doab (the land between Ganges and Jamuna) or "Two Waters" or rivers we have seven rivers which could be a correspondence of ancient Iranian geographic term Hapta-Hindu or "Seven Rivers" (yet some scholars think that these were seven rivers in Middle Asia). And this brings us back to the question about Indus/Sindhu/Hindu. In Sankrit "sindhu" (= Iranian "hindu") means river, water or sea. I think this name of the Indus has meant simply "the River" i.e. the river par excellence (just like the ancient Egyptians have called the Nile). I can't remember exactly, but I think one of the ancient names of Indus (or one of the tributaries?) was Niila - "the Blue (River)" which could give rise to the confusion
amongst some antique and medieval geographers who believed that Nile comes from India (it was thought that the Indian ocean is a big lake and Asia and Africa are linked). It's interesting that the word "sindhu" is found also in Europe - in fifth century BCE Herodotus mentioned a land called Sindike (between the Sea of Azov and the Caucasus) and the tribe Sindoi whom some scholars consider as Indo-Aryan speaking relatives of the Iranian Scythians..
With metta,
Ardavarz
--- On Sat, 3/21/09, P G Dave <pgd2507@...> wrote:
From: P G Dave <pgd2507@...>
Subject: Re: [Pali] Re: Indus, Sindhu, Hindu (was: Meditation Stage)
To: Pali@yahoogroups.com
Date: Saturday, March 21, 2009, 2:40 PM
quickly, too ... :-)
1. pre-partition punjab was divided during partition so both india and
pakistan have a portion punjab today -- west punjab went to pakistan and
east punjab to india, just as bengal was divided during partition -- west
bengal going to india and east bengal forming erstwhile east pakistan (now
bangladesh).
2. unlikely that p in paskistan stands for punjab. infact, "paak" in urdu
means pure. thus paakistaan (the a's doubled to indicate pronunciation)
would mean the pure land.
with metta,
____________ ________
On Sat, Mar 21, 2009 at 5:32 PM, Ong Yong Peng <palismith@... com> wrote:
> Dear James and friends,
>
> my sincere apologies. To me, it is history, and while we looked back, let's
> only learn the good and not the bad from the past. Quickly, the P in
> "Pakistan" did stand for Punjab; separatist ideas along the lines of ethnic
> or religious division are usually big mistakes.
>
> metta,
> Yong Peng.
>
>
> --- In Pali@... com <Pali%40yahoogroups .com>, James Whelan wrote:
>
> It is sad to see this wonderful Pali group facility used for ill-informed
> political criticism. Pakistan was created at the insistence of a powerful
> Muslim faction under Jinna, very much against the wishes of the vast
> majority of the Indians, and of the departing British. As for the comical
> comment about the Punjab being a province of Pakistan, please look at an
> atlas. Let's stick to Pali and Buddhism!
>
> > Can we not say the same of Punjab, where the Sikh religion and people
> originated but now also a province of Pakistan? Pakistan was but the
> invention of the colonial British government.
>
>
>
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