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{{Science and technology in India}}
The '''cartography of India''' begins with early charts for navigation<ref name=Sircar3/> and constructional plans for buildings.<ref name=gole1990>Gole (1990)</ref> Indian traditions influenced [[Tibet]]an<ref name=sircar329quote>Sircar, 329</ref> and [[Geography in medieval Islam|Islamic traditions]],<ref name=Pinto06quote>Pinto (2006)</ref> and in turn, were influenced by the [[United Kingdom|British]] cartographers who solidified modern concepts into India's map making.<ref name=Fuechsel>Fuechsel (2008)</ref>

A prominent foreign [[geographer]] and [[Cartography|cartographer]] was [[Hellenistic geography|Hellenistic geographer]] [[Ptolemy]] (90–168) who researched at the library in [[Alexandria]] to produce a detailed eight-volume record of world geography.<ref name=Fuechsel/> During the Middle Ages, India sees some exploration by [[Chinese geography|Chinese]] and [[Muslim geography|Muslim]] geographers, while European maps of India remain very sketchy.
A prominent medieval cartographer was [[Geography in medieval Islam|Persian geographer]] [[Abu Rayhan Biruni]] (973–1048) who visited India and studied the country's geography extensively.<ref name=Biruni>{{MacTutor|id=Al-Biruni|title=Abu Arrayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni}}</ref>

European maps become more accurate with the [[Age of Exploration]] and [[Portuguese India]] from the 16th century. The first modern maps were produced by the [[Survey of India]], established in 1767 by the [[British East India Company]]. The Survey of India remains in continued existence as the official mapping authority of the [[Republic of India]].

==Prehistory==
[[Joseph E. Schwartzberg]] (2008) proposes that the [[Indus Valley Civilization]] of the [[Bronze Age]] (c. 2500–1900 BCE) may have known "cartographic activity" based on a number of excavated surveying instruments and measuring rods and that the use of large scale constructional plans, cosmological drawings, and cartographic material was known in India with some regularity since the [[Vedic period]] (1st millennium BCE).<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://pscst.punjab.gov.in/sites/default/files/documents/HistoryofSCInTECHInPb.pdf |title=History of Science and Technology in Punjab|access-date=May 20, 2024|language=en}}</ref><ref name=Schwartzberg1>Schwartzberg, 1301–1302</ref>
: 'Though not numerous, a number of map-like graffiti appear among the thousands of [[Stone Age]] [[Cave paintings in India|Indian cave paintings]]; and at least one complex Mesolithic diagram is believed to be a representation of the cosmos.'<ref name=Schwartzberg1301>Schwartzberg, 1301</ref>

Susan Gole (1990) comments on the cartographic traditions in early India:
{{Quote|The fact that towns as far apart as [[Mohenjodaro]] near the [[Indus]] and [[Lothal]] on the [[Saurashtra (region)|Saurashtra]] coast were built in the second millennium BCE with baked bricks of identical size on similar plans denotes a widespread recognition of the need for accuracy in planning and management. In the 8th century CE the [[Ellora Kailasanathar Temple|Kailas temple]] at [[Ellora]] in [[Maharashtra]] was carved down into mountain for 100 feet, with intricate sculptures lining pillared halls, no easy task even with an exact map to follow, impossible without. So if no maps have been found, it should not be assumed that the Indians did not know how to conceptualize in a cartographic manner.<ref name=gole1990/>}}

==Antiquity==
[[File:Ptolemy_Asia_detail.jpg|thumb|Southeast Asia in a Renaissance map constructed after [[Claudius Ptolemy|Ptolemy]]'s ''[[Ptolemy's Geography|Geography]]'', rediscovered by [[Maximus Planudes]] in [[Constantinople]] {{circa|lk=no|1300}}.]]
[[Cartography]] of [[Indian subcontinent|India]] as a part of the greater continent of [[Cartography of Asia|Asia]] developed in [[Classical Antiquity]].

In [[Greek cartography]], India appears as a remote land on the eastern fringe of Asia in the 5th century BCE ([[Hecataeus of Miletus]]). More detailed knowledge becomes available after the conquests of [[Alexander the Great]], and the 3rd-century BCE geographer [[Eratosthenes]] had a clearer idea of the size and location of India. By the 1st century, at least the western coast of India was well known to [[Hellenistic period|Hellenistic]] geography, with itineraries such as the [[Periplus of the Erythraean Sea]]. [[Marinus of Tyre|Marinus]] and [[Ptolemy]] had some knowledge of the [[Indian Ocean]] (which they considered [[Indian Sea|a sea]]) but their idea of the size of [[Taprobana]] ([[Sri Lanka]]) was vastly too large and the Indian peninsula much reduced. They also had little knowledge of the interior of the country.

Native Indian cartographic traditions before the Hellenistic period remain rudimentary. Early forms of cartography in [[India]] included legendary paintings; maps of locations described in Indian [[epic poetry]], for example the ''[[Ramayana]]''.<ref name=Sircar1/> These works contained descriptions of legendary places, and often even described the nature of the mythological inhabitants of a particular location.<ref name=Sircar1>Sircar, page 327</ref> Early Indian cartography showed little knowledge of scale, the important parts of the map were shown to be larger than others (Gole 1990). Indian cartographic traditions also covered the locations of the [[Pole star]], and other constellations of use.<ref name=Sircar3/> These charts may have been in use by the beginning of the [[Common Era]] for purposes of navigation.<ref name=Sircar3/> Other early maps in India include the [[Udaygiri Caves|Udayagiri]] wall sculpture—made under the [[Gupta Empire]] in 400 CE—showing the meeting of the [[Ganges]] and the [[Yamuna]].<ref name=Schwartzberg1302>Schwartzberg, 1302</ref>

==Middle Ages==

The 8th-century poet and dramatist [[Bhavabhuti]], in Act 1 of the ''Uttararamacarita'', described paintings which indicated geographical regions.<ref name=Sircar2>Sircar, 328</ref> In the 20th century, over 200 medieval Indian maps were studied in the compilation of a history of cartography. Also considered in the study were copper-plate text inscriptions on which the boundaries of land, granted to the [[Brahman]] priests of India by their patrons, were described in detail.<ref name=gole1990/> The descriptions indicated good geographical knowledge and in one case over 75 details of the land granted have been found.<ref name=gole1990/> The [[China|Chinese]] records of the [[Tang dynasty]] show that a map of the neighboring Indian region was gifted to Wang Hiuen-tse by its king.<ref>Sircar, 326.</ref>

In the 9th century, [[Geography in medieval Islam|Islamic geographers]] under [[Abbasid Caliphate|Abbasid Caliph]] [[Al-Ma'mun]] improved on Ptolemy's work and depicted the [[Indian Ocean]] as an [[Ocean|open body of water]] instead of a land-locked [[sea]] as Ptolemy had done.<ref name=Covington>Covington (2007)</ref> The [[Iranian peoples|Iranian]] geographers [[Abū Muhammad al-Hasan al-Hamdānī]] and [[Habash al-Hasib al-Marwazi]] set the [[Prime Meridian]] of their maps at [[Ujjain]], a centre of [[Indian astronomy]].<ref>Kennedy, 189</ref> In the early 11th century, the [[Persian people|Persian]] geographer [[Abu Rayhan Biruni]] visited India and studied the country's geography extensively.<ref name=Biruni/> He was considered the most skilled when it came to mapping [[City|cities]] and measuring the distances between them, which he did for many cities in the western [[Indian subcontinent]].{{Citation needed|date=June 2010}} He also wrote extensively on the [[Geological history of India|geology of India]].<ref>Salam (1984)</ref> In 1154, the [[Arab]] geographer [[Muhammad al-Idrisi]] included a section on the cartography and geography of India and its neighboring countries in his world atlas, ''[[Tabula Rogeriana]]''.<ref>See {{Citation|first=S. Maqbul|last=Ahmad|title=Al-Sharif al-Idrisi: India and the Neighbouring Territories|year=1960}}</ref>

Italian scholar Francesco Lorenzo Pullè reproduced a number of Indian maps in his ''magnum opus'' ''La Cartografia Antica dell'India''.<ref name=Sircar2/> Out these maps two have been reproduced using a manuscript of ''Lokaprakasa''—originally compiled by the polymath Ksemendra ([[Kashmir]], 11th century)—as a source.<ref name=Sircar2/> The other manuscript, used as a source by Francesco Pullè, is titled ''Samgrahani''.<ref name=Sircar2/> The early volumes of the ''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]'' also described cartographic charts made by the [[Dravidian people]] of India.<ref name=Sircar3>Sircar, 330</ref><ref>See ''Encyclopædia Britannica, 14th edition, volume XIV, 840–841''.</ref>
[[File:Asia oceania anonymous c1550.jpg|thumb|upright=1.25|16th century Portuguese navigational chart of the region]]

The cartographic tradition of India influenced the map making tradition of [[Tibet]], where maps of Indian origin have been discovered.<ref name=sircar329quote/> Islamic cartography was also influenced by the Indian tradition as a result of extensive contact.<ref name=Pinto06quote/>

The Portuguese explorer [[Vasco da Gama]] reached the subcontinent on 20 May 1498, anchoring off [[Calicut]], on Malabar Coast. He would, with other [[Portuguese discoveries|Portuguese]], navigate and chart much of the sub-continents coast line, within decades. These charts were rapidly reproduced, and appeared in say the 1502 [[Cantino planisphere]].

==Mughal era==
[[File:Map_of_the_Inhabited_Quarter.png|left|thumb|Map of the “Inhabited Quarter” by Sadiq Isfahani from [[Jaunpur, Uttar Pradesh|Jaunpur]] c.1647. This was one of the only surviving Indian made maps. ]]
Maps from the 1590 [[Ain-e-Akbari]], a [[Mughal era|Mughal]] document detailing India's history and traditions, contain references to locations indicated in earlier Indian cartographic traditions.<ref name="Sircar2" />

Through the 16th century European explorers, and traders, such as [[Jan Huygen van Linschoten]] ventured into the interior, from the growing number or European trading posts, and expanded on and refined the previous navigational charts, with geographic detail. A series of geographies published under the title ''Itinerario'' (later published as an English edition as Discours of Voyages into Y East & West Indies), appeared in 1596, and graphically displayed for the first time in Europe detailed maps of voyages to the East Indies, particularly India.
[[File:AMH-6577-KB Bird's eye view of the city of Goa.jpg|thumb|upright=1.15|Map of Goa, in Linschoten's Itineraries, ca.1590|left]]

The [[wikt:seamless|seamless]] hollow [[Celestial globe]] was invented in Kashmir by Ali Kashmiri ibn Luqman in 998 AH (1589–90), and twenty other such globes were later produced in [[Lahore]] and Kashmir during the [[Mughal Empire]].<ref name=Emilie/> Before they were rediscovered in the 1980s, it was believed by modern metallurgists to be technically impossible to produce hollow metal globes without any [[wiktionary:seam|seams]], even with modern technology.<ref name=Emilie/> These Mughal metallurgists pioneered the method of [[lost-wax casting]] in order to produce these globes.<ref name=Emilie>Savage-Smith (1985)</ref>

The scholar Sadiq Isfahani of [[Jaunpur, Uttar Pradesh|Jaunpur]] compiled an [[atlas]] of the parts of the world which he held to be 'suitable for human life'.<ref name=Schwartzberg1302/> The 32 sheet atlas—with maps oriented towards the south as was the case with Islamic works of the era—is part of a larger scholarly work compiled by Isfahani during 1647.<ref name=Schwartzberg1302/> According to Joseph E. Schwartzberg (2008): 'The largest known Indian map, depicting the former [[Rajput]] capital at [[Kingdom of Amber|Amber]] in remarkable house-by-house detail, measures 661 × 645 cm. (260 × 254 in., or approximately 22 × 21 ft).'<ref name=Schwartzberg1303>Schwartzberg, 1303</ref>

==Colonial India==
[[File:NainSingh.gif|thumb|upright|For contributing to geographical knowledge about Asia, the [[pundit (explorer)]] and cartographer [[Nain Singh Rawat]] (19th century) received a [[Royal Geographical Society]] gold medal in 1876.]]
A map describing the [[kingdom of Nepal]], four feet in length and about two and a half feet in breadth, was presented to [[Warren Hastings]].<ref name=Sircar1>Sircar, page 327</ref> In this [[raised-relief map]] the mountains were elevated above the surface and several geographical elements were indicated in different colors.<ref name=Sircar1/> The Europeans used 'scale-bars' in their cartographic tradition.<ref name=gole1990/> Upon their arrival in India during the [[Middle Ages]], the indigenous Indian measures were reported back to Europe, and first published by Guillaume de I'Isle in 1722 as ''Carte des Costes de Malabar et de Coromandel''.<ref name=gole1990/>

With the establishment of the [[British Raj]] in India, modern European cartographic traditions were officially employed by the [[Survey of India|British Survey of India]] (1767). One British observer commented on the tradition of native Indian cartography:

{{Quote|Besides geographical tracts, the Hindus have also maps of the world according to the system of the [[Puranas|puranics]] and of the astronomers: the latter are very common. They also have maps of India and of particular districts, in which latitudes and longitudes are entirely out of question, and they never make use of scale of equal parts. The sea shores, rivers and ranges of mountains are represented by straight lines.<ref name="Sircar1"/>}}

The [[Great Trigonometric Survey]], a project of the [[Survey of India]] throughout most of the 19th century, was piloted in its initial stages by [[William Lambton]], and later by [[George Everest]]. To achieve the highest accuracy a number of corrections were applied to all distances calculated from simple trigonometry:
* [[Figure of the Earth|Curvature of the Earth]]
* The non spherical [[Figure of the Earth|nature of the curvature of the Earth]]
* [[Gravitation]]al influence of mountains on [[pendulum#Gravity|pendulum]]s
* [[Refraction]]
* [[Height above sea level]]

[[Thomas George Montgomerie]] organized several cartographic expeditions to map [[Tibet]], as well as [[China]].<ref name=Nagendra>Nagendra (1999)</ref> Mohamed-i-Hameed, [[Nain Singh]] and Mani Singh were among the agents employed by the British for their cartographic operations.<ref name=Nagendra/> Nain Singh, in particular, became famous for his geographical knowledge of Asia, and was awarded several honors for his expeditions.<ref name=Nagendra2>In 1876, his achievements were announced in the Geographical Magazine. The awards and recognition soon started flowing in. On his retirement, the [[British India|Indian Government]] honoured him with the grant of a village, and 1000 rupees in revenue. The crowning achievement came in 1876, when the [[Royal Geographical Society]] honoured him with a gold medal as the ‘man who has added a greater amount of positive knowledge to the map of Asia than any individual of our time—Nagendra 1999.</ref>

==Modern India (1947 to present)==
{{main|Survey of India}}

The modern map making techniques in India, like other parts of the world, employ [[digitization]], [[photograph|photographic survey]]s and [[printing]].<ref name=ie99/> [[Satellite imagery|Satellite imageries]], [[aerial photograph]]s and [[video|video surveying]] techniques are also used.<ref name=ie99>See [http://www.indianexpress.com/res/web/pIe/ie/daily/19990224/ige24144.html Indian Express (1999). ''Modern map-making techniques on display''. Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.]{{dead link|date=September 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> The Indian IRS-P5 ([[CARTOSAT-1]]) was equipped with high resolution panchromatic equipment to enable it for cartographic purposes.<ref name=Burleson136/> IRS-P5 (CARTOSAT-1) was followed by a more advanced model named IRS-P6 developed also for agricultural applications.<ref name=Burleson136/> The [[CARTOSAT-2]] project, equipped with single panchromatic camera which supported scene specific on-spot images, succeed the CARTOSAT-1 project.<ref name=Burleson136>Burleson, D. (2005), "India", ''Space Programs Outside the United States: All Exploration and Research Efforts, Country by Country'', McFarland, 136–146, {{ISBN|0-7864-1852-4}}.</ref>

==See also==
* ''[[A Historical Atlas of South Asia]]''
* [[Geography of India]]
* [[Great Trigonometrical Survey]]
* [[History of European exploration in Tibet]]
* [[Pundit (explorer)]]
* [[Sarat Chandra Das]]

==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}

==Bibliography==
{{commons|Atlas of India}}
* Covington, Richard (2007), ''[[Saudi Aramco World]]'' (May–June 2007), pp. 17–21.
* Fuechsel, Charles F. (2008), "map", ''Encyclopædia Britannica''.
* {{cite journal|last1=Gole|first1=Susan|title=Size as a measure of importance in Indian cartography|journal=Imago Mundi|volume=42|issue=1|year=2008|pages=99–105|jstor=1151051|doi=10.1080/03085699008592695}}
* Kennedy, Edward S. (1996), "Mathematical Geography", ''Encyclopedia of the History of Arabic Science'' ('''1 & 3''') edited by Rushdī Rāshid & Régis Morelon, Routledge, {{ISBN|0-415-12410-7}}.
* Nagendra, Harini (1999), [http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/sep10/articles5.htm ''Re-discovering Nain Singh''], Indian Institute of Science.
* Pinto, Karen (2006), "Cartography", ''Medieval Islamic Civilization: An Encyclopedia'' edited by Josef W. Meri & Jere L. Bacharach, pp. 138–140, Taylor & Francis.
* Salam, Abdus (1984), "Islam and Science", ''Ideals and Realities: Selected Essays of Abdus Salam (2nd ed.)'' edited by C. H. Lai (1987), pp. 179–213, World Scientific.
* [[Savage-Smith, Emilie]] (1985), ''Islamicate Celestial Globes: Their history, Construction, and Use'', Smithsonian Institution Press.
* Schwartzberg, Joseph E. (2008), "Maps and Mapmaking in India", ''Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures (2nd edition)'' edited by [[Helaine Selin]], pp. 1301–1303, Springer, {{ISBN|978-1-4020-4559-2}}.
* Sircar, D.C.C. (1990), ''Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India'', Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, {{ISBN|81-208-0690-5}}.

==External links==
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070923050617/http://india.gov.in/maps/indiaindex.php ''Survey of India'' (2005), NIC.]
* [https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/ Schwartzberg, Joseph E. (1992), ''Historical Atlas of South Asia'', Digital South Asia Library.]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20110925213438/http://www.roadsofindia.com/ Local India Maps]
* [https://books.google.com/books?id=QQR_tgAACAAJ Manosi Lahiri. "Mapping India" 2012]
* [https://www.amazon.in/Maps-Delhi-Pilar-Maria-Guerrieri/dp/9385285505 Guerrieri P. (2017), "Maps of Delhi", Niyogi Books.]

{{Cartography topics}}
{{Atlas}}
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{{Science in India}}

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[[Category:Geography of India]]
[[Category:Cartography by country|India]]
[[Category:Maps of India]]

Cartography of India - Revision history

NoellaXgt402 at 09:38, 4 May 2026