Remapping the Past

One of the maps in the collections is Pichhvai of Vraj Yatra, which depicts the route of the Vraj Yatra undertaken by the pilgrims each year. As devotees move in a clockwise direction around the city of Mathura, the Pichhvai depicts Krishna during a raas leela with the gopis, scenes from his life apart from Mount Govardhana and the birthplace of Radha. Another map by a Dutch merchant, trader and historian Jan Huyghen van Linschoten also forms a part of the exhibition. He served as the Portuguese Viceroy’s secretary in Goa in 1583 and later abused the trust given to him by the Viceroy, as he copied secret maps page by page. His book, Itinerario, published in 1596, graphically depicted detailed maps of voyages to India for the Europeans. Alex Johnson, one of the curators of the exhibition, says, “Linschoten’s map was based on stolen Portuguese manuscripts and helped in opening the navigational routes for the English and the Dutch. The East India Company could finally end the 16th century monopoly enjoyed by the  Portuguese.”

Other highlights include a map of northern India, published in Istanbul in 1732, which was believed to be the first map of India to have been printed in the Islamic world and to have employed typography in Arabic characters. The exhibition also features cartographic depictions of the ancient European conception of the subcontinent alongside the first near accurate map of India made following the arrival of Vasco da Gama in 1498. “Indigenous mapping done through early medieval period draws heavily from our experiences with pilgrimage and religious places. This contrasts the European notions of mapping that had more to do with measuring, quantifying, tabulating and  calculating,” says architectural historian Vivek Nanda, the other curator of the exhibition.

The exhibition is on display till October 11 at National Museum, Janpath