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.

这篇文章提供了 2500 多年来多价术语“印度教”的结构化历史，目的是有效地颠覆我们自以为知道的东西。“印度教”在现代是一个无处不在的词，被数十种语言的学者和实践者用来表示宗教传统的成员。但“hindu”的宗教含义及其常用用法是很新的。在这里，我追溯了“印度教”的分层历史，这是早期和中世纪印度一系列不断变化的身份的一部分。在这样做的过程中，我利用了主要来源的档案——古波斯语、新波斯语、梵语、Prakrit、印地语、马拉地语、孟加拉语等——提供了理解一个长期跨越的术语所需的多语言故事南亚的语言。此外，我并不将前现代视为前奏，而是将其视为这个故事的核心。如此多的南亚历史——包括使用“印度教”一词的两千多年——都被那些只关注英国殖民主义及后来的殖民主义的人误解了。如果我们要更富有成效地思考排列我们知识的术语和概念，我们需要更深入地考虑南亚的过去。在这里，我提供了一个这样的贡献，它整理了关于多形式和流畅的词“印度教”的历史材料，可以帮助我们更批判性和更准确地思考这个话语类别。