Tianzhu () is a historical Chinese name for the Indian subcontinent. () means "heaven", and () means "bamboo" in Chinese.
Tianzhu was also referred to as (), because there were five geographical regions on the Indian subcontinent known to the Chinese: Central, Eastern, Northern, Southern, and Western India.
Originally pronounced as or () in Old Chinese, it comes from the Chinese transliteration of unattested Old Persian diminutive , which is from attested (Hindu), which is itself derived from the Proto-Indo-Iranian *sÃÂndðuà ¡, the etymon also of Sanskrit , the native name of the Indus River. Persians travelling in northwest India (present-day Pakistani Sindh and Punjab) named the subcontinent after the river around the 6th century BC. is just one of several Chinese transliterations of Sindhu. () appears in Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian and () is used in the Book of the Later Han. () comes from the Kuchean , another transliteration of Hindu. The western terms of Hindu and India also ultimately derive from the same Persian concept.
A detailed account of Tianzhu is given in the "Xiyu Zhuan" (Record of the Western Regions) in the compiled by Fan Ye (398âÂÂ445):
In Japan, Tianzhu () is pronounced as . It is used in such works as the Japanese translation of Journey to the West.
In Korea, Tianzhu () is pronounced as . It is used in Wang ocheonchukguk jeon (An Account of Travel to the Five Indian Kingdoms), a travelogue by the 8th century Buddhist monk Hyecho from the Korean kingdom of Silla.