Talk:Cartography of India

Jingoism

As was to be expected, I see that Indian jingoism has caught up with this article. I'll try to fix it, removing the more eccentric attempts to pull "cartography" from IVC bricks or the Ramayana. Note that this article concerns maps of India (regardless of who draws them), not "maps made by Indians".--dab (𒁳) 09:27, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

I found this in Gole, S. Size as a Measure of Importance in Indian Cartography. Imago Mundi, Vol. 42, (1990), pp. 99-105.:

The fact that towns as far apart as Mohenjodaro near the Indus and Lothal on the Saurashtra coast were built in the second millennium BC with baked bricks of identical size on similar plans denotes a widespread recognition of the need for accuracy in planning and management. In the eight century AD the 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.

Gole is just speculating that IVC people must have known map-making. She's not a "jingoistic Indian".

Besides geographical tracts, the Hindus have also maps of the world according to the system of the 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.

As for Ramayana, people have been drawing cosmological drawings since antiquity. It never means that they have any geographical knowledge but these sketches deserve a mention just because they're sketches of places (similar has been done in Earliest_known_maps (History of Cartography). Its no jingoistic attempt, just that when people like the above quoted British commentator (mentioned in DC Sircar) cover the history of cartographic charts they usually mention both real and imaginary charts while pointing out that the imaginary charts were, well, imaginary (and useless for navigation etc.).

JSR (talk) 15:27, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

As for "Note that this article concerns maps of India (regardless of who draws them), not maps made by Indians": Duly noted. Foreign maps of India predate Indian traditions. When I add them (with sources, and in the lede) then do I add them in a seperate section or add each in their respective time periods?

JSR (talk) 15:32, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

I have introduced Greek cartographers into the article as asked. Both within the main body and in the lede. JSR (talk) 06:27, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Map of india

. 2409:4054:20A:C2E6:0:0:1691:A8A0 (talk) 05:56, 13 March 2022 (UTC)