Properly, Sanatana Dharma cannot be called ‘Hindu’ or labeled with any other such limiting term of reference, because by definition it is eternal and universal. As the ordering laws of the Universe or ‘nature’ cannot properly be called American, Russian or Indian (Indus = foreign word ‘Hindu’ for the people beyond the Indus River), Eternal Dharma cannot be said to be ‘Hindu’ or Indian, or time and place limited to any other collective of people or geographical region. If ‘Sanatana Dharma’ could be so limited, it would not be Sanatana Dharma. If you mean how old is some religion called ‘Hindu Dharma’, it would depend on exactly what ‘Hindu’ religion you are referring to. India / Bharata is the home of more than 700 languages and these peoples all have various religious views, which generally in modern times have fallen under the label of ‘Hindu’. I have traced-out the oldest of these living Traditions through over 40 years of exhaustive interdisciplinary studies. From all of the available evidence of every kind, the Tradition that I have found with the greatest time depth and widest diffusion is the worship of HARI and/or HARA with Their SHAKTIs. The great sea and river basin civilizations all worshiped HARI by the Name of NR / MR / NHR / NHL or NRYN / NARAYANA. This is why the ancient Biblical Name of the entire Mesopotamian Region was NHRYM NAHARAIM / NARAYANA. In Egypt the Land of the NHL / NILE was called MZRYM. NHRYM = MZRYM ‘Mizrayim’. Later MZRYM became NZRYN ‘NAZAREAN’. The NZRYN religion was that of the Mikveoth or Sacred River Baptism practitioners. Thus in India, we can still see this practice in the Kumba Mela and in the other ritual ablutions performed in Sacred Rivers like the Ganga and Jamuna. Such purifying rites are also performed in Kunds, lakes and Ghats.
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