Santana Dharma or Hinduism?

The term Hindu is said to have referred to the culture of the people on the other side of the Sindhu River. Although the terms Hindu and Hinduism were created by foreign invaders, sometimes using them as derogatory terms, the indigenous people then co-opted these terms (mostly in the past 200 years) as collective or umbrella terms to describe themselves and their various ways of living, and many different religions and spiritual practices, a custom which continues today. The original term, predating these by thousands of years, was Sanatana Dharma, a profound term that is rich with beauty and inherent wisdom. Out of that Sanatana Dharma emerged modern Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism, while significantly effecting many other religions or traditions, which also followed much later. The underlying reality referred to by the term Sanatana Dharma is actually eternal, and thus is beyond any reference to the first usage of the term, or to any religions or traditions stemming from it.

 

Sanatana denotes that which always is,
that which has neither beginning nor end,
that which is eternal in its very essence.

Dharma is designed to communicate the view that
there is an underlying structure of natural law
that is inherent in the very intrinsic constitution
of Being itself - an essential nature. 

Thus, Sanatana Dharma refers to the eternal,
natural way, the never beginning and never
ending flow of the whole of being. 

--Text from www.Swamiji.com