Tianzhu (India)

Tianzhu (Chinese and Japanese: 天竺;pinyin: tiānzhú;rōmaji: tenjiku;Korean: 천축;romaja: cheonchuk) is the historical East Asian name for Indian subcontinent, today's Nepal, India and Pakistan. Originally pronounced xien-t'juk, it comes from the Chinese transliteration of the Persian Hindu, which is itself derived from the Sanskrit Sindhu, the native name of the Indus River. Persians travelling in northwest India and Pakistan named the region after the river around the 6th century BC. Tianzhu is just one of several Chinese transliterations of Sindhu. Shēndú (身毒 OC n̥i[ŋ][d]ˤuk) appears in Sima Qian's Shiji and Tiandu (天篤) is used in the Hou Hanshu (Book of the Later Han). Yintejia (印特伽) comes from the Kuchean Indaka, another transliteration of Hindu. A detailed account of Tianzhu is given in the "Xiyu Zhuan" (Record of the Western Regions) in the Hou Hanshu compiled by Fan Ye (398–445):