Indoi
Also called: Indike · Topic: India, That Is Bharat: Names of India and Unity in Diversity · NCERT: Class 6, Ch 5 "India, That Is Bharat"
Meaning
Indoi and Indike were the Greek names for India and its people. The Greeks took them from Persian sources, where the land was called 'Hindu'. The Greek language has no 'h' sound, so the first 'h' was dropped, and 'Hindu' became 'Indu-'. From Greek, the word passed into Latin as India, and then into other European languages, for example French Inde. The chain to remember is Sindhu → Hindu → Indoi → India.
Example
Megasthenes, a Greek envoy, lived at the court of Chandragupta Maurya at Pataliputra (c. 300 BCE). He wrote an account of the land called Indika, which means "things about India".
Don't confuse with
- Hindush / Hindu: these were the Persian forms, which kept the 'h'. Indoi and Indike are the Greek forms, which dropped it.