Naqsha-e-Shahr-e-Shahjahanabad (Map of the City of Shahjahanabad)
1919
Etching on paper
Print size: 27.5 x 20.25 in (70 x 51.5 cm)
Sheet size: 29.25 x 21.5 in (74.5 x 54.5 cm)
A Monumental Urdu Survey Plan of Shahjahanabad (Old Delhi) — The Mughal Capital on the Eve of Empire
"Map of the City of Delhi (Shahjahanabad), in which the Mussulmans' and the Hindus' ancient buildings have been shown; scale 12 inches per mile; copied from the map published by the Survey of India in 1873," from Bashir ud-Din Ahmad Dihlavi, Waqeyaat-e-Daar-ul-Hukoomat Dehli, (Agra: Shams Machine Press, 1919 [A.H.1338]), vol. 2 [of 3]), inset between pp. 36-37 of the introduction.
Large engraved or lithographed urban survey map printed in black ink, with Urdu–Persian title, legend, and street nomenclature throughout, depicting the complete walled city of Shahjahanabad, including the Red Fort, Jama Masjid, Chandni Chowk, major bazaars, gardens, canals, mosques, gates, and residential quarters.
This imposing and technically precise city plan represents one of the most historically significant urban documents ever produced for Delhi: a full measured survey of Shahjahanabad, the seventeenth-century Mughal capital founded by Emperor Shah Jahan in 1639 and for over two centuries the symbolic, administrative, and cultural heart of Indo-Islamic India.
Executed in formal Urdu-Persian (Nasta‘liq) script, the map bears the title:
“Naqsha-e-Shahr-e-Shahjahanabad / Ma‘ bayan s?k?, bazar, baghat, masajid o ‘imarat / Az royah-e paimaish-e ?a?i? (Map of the City of Shahjahanabad showing the Fort, streets and neighbourhoods, together with the roads, markets, gardens, mosques and buildings, drawn according to accurate measurement)
The language and phrasing are crucial: this is not a pictorial or commemorative map but a technical instrument of governance. Such plans were produced during the period when Mughal administrative practices were being absorbed and systematised by the East India Company, before and immediately after the great rupture of 1857. Urdu remained the official language of revenue, policing, and municipal administration in Delhi until the mid-nineteenth century, making this map a document of a bureaucratic world on the brink of extinction.
The plan meticulously records the entire walled city, including:
• The Red Fort (Qila-e-Mu‘alla) with its inner courts
• Jama Masjid and subsidiary mosques
• Chandni Chowk and its branching bazaars
• The city’s canals, gardens, serais and havelis
• All gates (darwazas) and bastions
• Individual mohallas and street grids
This is the urban fabric of Mughal Delhi rendered with modern survey discipline — the moment when an imperial capital was being converted into a governable colonial city.
After the Indian Uprising of 1857, Shahjahanabad was subjected to radical military and urban restructuring. Entire quarters were demolished, mosques confiscated, gardens erased, and roads driven through the mediaeval fabric to allow troop movement and surveillance. Maps such as this were the templates of that transformation.
Surviving Urdu survey plans of Delhi are exceptionally rare. Most British-produced maps were issued in English, while Mughal manuscript plans were schematic and symbolic. This hybrid form — Islamic administrative language combined with Western cartographic precision — represents a fleeting, transitional moment in South Asian urban history.
This map is not merely a view of Old Delhi—it is the last cartographic record of the Mughal capital as a living city before it was broken apart and refashioned into a colonial metropolis. For historians, collectors, and institutions, it occupies the same documentary category as:
• Pre-1857 revenue maps
• Great Trigonometrical Survey city plans
• Early Ordnance Survey-style Indian urban mapping
It is, in effect, the architectural X-ray of Mughal Delhi.
NON-EXPORTABLE
This lot is offered at RESERVE
This lot will be shipped in "as is" condition. For further details, please refer to the images of individual lots as a reference for the condition of each lot.