Indian Maps and Plans: From Earliest Times to the Advent of European Surveys

Susan Gole, Indian Maps and Plans: From Earliest Times to the Advent of European Surveys , New Delhi: Manohar Publishers, 1989

208 pages, illustrated throughout with colour and monochrome reproductions of manuscript and printed maps and plans; includes scholarly commentary, references, and index; publisher’s illustrated wrappers (as issued)
11.4 x 8.9 in (29.2 x 22.8 cm)

Indian Maps and Plans — From Cosmological Space to Colonial Survey

Susan Gole’s Indian Maps and Plans is a foundational modern study of the visual history of mapping in the Indian subcontinent, charting the evolution of spatial representation from early cosmological and ritual conceptions through to the systematic surveys introduced under European rule. The work is distinguished by its sustained engagement with indigenous Indian mapping traditions—temple plans, pilgrimage diagrams, city maps, and administrative layouts—long before the imposition of Western scientific cartography.

Gole carefully situates these materials within their intellectual and cultural contexts, demonstrating that Indian mapping was not merely symbolic but often functional, responding to religious practice, courtly administration, and urban organisation. The volume then traces the gradual encounter with European survey methods, culminating in the large-scale triangulation projects of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Rather than presenting this shift as a simple narrative of progress, the author highlights points of continuity, adaptation, and selective adoption.

Illustrated with a wide range of reproduced maps and plans, the book serves both as a scholarly reference and as an interpretive framework for understanding maps as cultural artefacts embedded in systems of power, belief, and governance. For collectors and institutions, it remains an essential companion to the study of South Asian cartography, bridging manuscript traditions and colonial-era survey science with clarity and academic restraint.

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