India, Ariana, Gedrosia, Arachosia et Carmania

Circa 1791

Copper engraving on paper

Print size: 9.25 x 7.75 in (23.5 x 20 cm)
Sheet size: 9.75 x 9.5 in (25 x 24 cm)

A Classical Vision of Western India and the Indus World. India, Ariana, Gedrosia and the Mare Erythraeum after Ptolemaic Geography

Copper-engraved map on a large sheet, folded as issued, in Jean Bernouilli's Description historique et géographique de l'Inde depicting western India and the north-western subcontinent from the Indus delta to the Paropamisadae, extending westwards to Carmania and Gedrosia, and southwards to the Mare Erythraeum (Arabian Sea); engraved with classical toponyms, ancient ethnographic regions, schematic mountain chains, and river systems; ruled border with latitude markings.

This finely engraved map presents a learnt classical reconstruction of western India and the Indus world, derived from Greco-Roman geographical tradition and transmitted through early modern European scholarship. Rooted in the authority of Claudius Ptolemy, the map reflects a vision of India shaped not by political reality or empirical survey, but by ancient historiography, ethnography, and textual geography.

The composition is organised around the Indus River, which dominates the sheet as the principal geographical axis, flowing southwards to its delta at the Mare Erythraeum. Surrounding regions are articulated according to classical nomenclature: Ariana, Gedrosia, Arachosia, Carmania, and the Paropamisadae, with India itself understood as part of a broader ancient Asian continuum rather than a discrete territorial state. Mountain systems are rendered schematically, evoking the Paropamisus and associated ranges as described in classical sources, while deserts, rivers, and ancient settlements are distributed according to inherited textual authorities.

Notably, the map makes no attempt to reconcile antiquity with contemporary geography. There is no reference to Mughal provinces, European trading companies, ports, or maritime routes, nor any acknowledgement of early modern political realities. Instead, India is presented as a conceptual and historical landscape, framed through the writings of authors such as Arrian, Strabo, and Pliny, and shaped by narratives of Alexander’s eastern campaigns and Roman-era geographical thought.

Maps of this type occupied an important place in early modern European intellectual culture. Produced at a time when survey-based cartography was rapidly advancing, they nonetheless preserved the prestige of classical geography, serving scholars, collectors, and readers engaged with antiquity, history, and humanist learning. They were intended not for navigation or administration but for scholarly contemplation and the visualisation of the ancient world, offering a window into how India and its neighbouring regions were imagined before the rise of empire.

Within institutional and auction contexts, such maps are valued for documenting the persistence of classical knowledge systems within early modern Europe and for illustrating how India was conceptualised long before colonial cartography redefined it through measurement, administration, and control.

This map is best understood as part of the tradition of Ptolemaic revival cartography, bridging Renaissance humanism and Enlightenment geography. It stands as a compelling example of how antiquity continued to shape European perceptions of India well into the late seventeenth century, even as modern cartographic practices were beginning to emerge.

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