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Hindū is the Persian name for the Indus River, first encountered in the Old Persian word Hindu Sanskrit Sindhu, the Indus River The Rig Veda mentions the land of the Indo-Aryans as Sapta Sindhu (the land of the seven rivers in northwestern South Asia, one of them being the Indus). This corresponds to Hapta Həndu in the Avesta (Vendidad or Videvdad 1.18)—the sacred scripture of Zoroastrianism. The term was used for those who lived in the Indian subcontinent on or beyond the "Sindhu". In Arabic, the term al-Hind (the Hind) also refers to 'the land of the people of modern day India'. (həndu), corresponding to Vedic

The Persian term (Middle Persian Hindūk, New Persian Hindū) entered India with the Delhi Sultanate and appears in South Indian and Kashmiri texts from at least 1323 CE, and increasingly so during British rule. Since the end of the 18th century the word has been used as an umbrella term for most of the religious, spiritual, and philosophical traditions of the sub-continent, usually excluding the religions of Sikhism, Buddhism, and Jainism as distinct.

The term Hinduism was introduced into the English language in the 19th century to denote the religious, philosophical, and cultural traditions native to India.

The term Brahminism was also introduced in the 19th century, describing a limited subset of the traditions subsumed under "Hinduism", viz. the principles and practices of the Hindu Brahmin, Brahminical Hinduism, the current-day practices of Brahmins, or to Vedic Brahmanism, the historical religion from which medieval and modern Hinduism has evloved. caste.