Sanskrit for 'Turk', the term medieval Hindu inscriptions most often used for the Muslim armies and rulers arriving from the northwest, identifying them by ethnicity rather than by religion. The historian B.D. Chattopadhyaya cites it as evidence that early medieval Hindus saw the newcomers as one more foreign people, not as a single religious enemy.

Where this term appears

• Hinduism and the Coming of Islam History →

  …, carved in stone in the moment, they very often called the newcomers turushka , Turks, and yavana , the old word once used for the Greeks, rather than "Muslims." The historian Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya, readin…

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