Hindu: A History

This article provides a textured history of the multivalent term hindu over 2,500 years, with the goal of productively unsettling what we think we know. Hindu is a ubiquitous word in modern times, used by scholars and practitioners in dozens of languages to denote members of a religious tradition. But the religious meaning of hindu and its common use are quite new. Here I trace the layered history of hindu, part of an array of shifting identities in early and medieval India. In so doing, I draw upon an archive of primary sources - in Old Persian, New Persian, Sanskrit, Prakrit, Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, and more - that offers the kind of multilingual story needed to understand a term that has long cut across languages in South Asia. Also, I do not treat premodernity as a prelude but rather recognize it as the heart of this tale. So much of South Asian history - including over two thousand years of using the term hindu - has been misconstrued by those who focus only on British colonialism and later. We need a deeper consideration of South Asian pasts if we are to think more fruitfully about the terms and concepts that order our knowledge. Here, I offer one such contribution that marshals historical material on the multiform and fluid word hindu that can help us think more critically and precisely about this discursive category.