"In each revolution of scientific thought new words are set to the old music and that which has gone before is not destroyed but refocussed."
- A. S. Eddington
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About 200 years back, was a time when the word ‘development’ was alien to Indian conditions and ‘urbanization’ was only in imagination. It was a time not very far from the finish of the wars between the Indian kings and the British ‘traders’. It was a country still reeling under the repeated invasions over centuries and trying to finally accept monarchy as an unavoidable eventuality. It was a time significant enough when the British needed to establish a sprawling network across the country and was in a position to deliberate and start taking decisions in the longer perspective. It was during this time in the early 1800s, a massive survey was conceptualized to know, explore and map the country as a whole. The intentions were ambitious, military and commercial. The outcome was an unimaginable feat of those times, an endeavor that is perhaps the greatest scientific endeavour the history of mankind.
MAPPING IN ANCIENT TIMES
Even though the mapping activity by the Britishers took scientific shape 200 years back, mapping activities are quite ancient in the Indian and South Asian history. Mahabharata is the first among the Sanskrit literary that has a separate section devoted to the geography of the Indian subcontinent and adjacent Central Asia. Probable ethnic distribution and geographic knowledge are derivable from the references in the Vedic texts, which are originated from middle to second millennium BC to about 600 BC. In Rig Veda, Nadi Stuti, enumerates most of the 3 rivers of South Asia.
Akbar’s Revenue Minister Todar Mal’s maps and those of the brilliant administrator Sher Shah Suri, based on regular land survey systems, were well known in their time and continued to be used in the mid-18th century. In 1752 the French geographer, Jean-Baptiste Bougigon d’Anville published a map that put Indian geographical knowledge on a definitive scientific footing.
Even though the British undertook piecemeal surveys in the eighteenth century, they were not aggregated for the whole nation. A new era started with the nineteenth century, which conceptualized the consolidation of the past efforts and the initiation of a scientifically strong and comprehensive exercise. In April 1802, the relatively comfortable cool days of winter were giving way to rising temperatures and increasing humidity and the sultry Indian summer loomed endlessly ahead. As fellow British officers explored ways to escape the heat, Colonel William Lambton made plans to walk the heart of the steaming land. The foundation of a truly scientific Survey of India was laid along with the beginning of a stupendous work occupying the work of scores of surveyors and scientists. The task of mapping the subcontinent commenced.
The network of observation stations slowly expanded across India
