Sindhu

This river was known to the ancient Indians in Sanskrit as Sindhu and the Persians as Hindu which was regarded by both of them as "the border river". The variation between the two names is explained by the Old Iranian sound change, which occurred between 850 and 600 BCE according to Asko Parpola. From the Persian Achaemenid Empire, the name passed to the Greeks as Indós (Ἰνδός). It was adopted by the Romans as Indus. The name India is derived from Indus. The Indigenous peoples of the Americas are commonly called "Indians" or "Indios", a misnaming that dates to Christopher Columbus's erroneous belief that he had landed near India in 1492, when he actually landed in the Americas.

The Ladakhis and Tibetans call the river Senge Tsangpo (སེང་གེ་གཙང་པོ།), Baltis call it Gemtsuh and Tsuh-Fo, Pashtuns call it Nilab, Sher Darya and Abbasin, while Sindhis call it Mehran, Purali and Samundar.

The modern name in Urdu and Hindi is Sindh (Urdu: سِنْدھ, Hindi: सिंध), a semi-learned borrowing from Sanskrit. Photo curtesy: Zaheer Chaudhry 

The Indus Gorge is formed as the Indus River bends around the Nanga Parbat massif, shown towering behind, defining the western anchor of the Himalayan mountain range.