(i) Whatever geographical information was available in pre-existing scientific and political documents was taken out and utilized. (ii) Local people were hired as messengers to bring in intelligence on routes, roads, rivers, bridges, hills, etc. (iii) Jesuits and ex-Jesuits took modern measurements and obtained valuable primary data. (iv) Whenever an opportunity presented itself, Company officials made surveys. (v) Lastly, as soon as it became possible, an exhaustive systematic field survey was ordered. The geographic and geodesic work done in India under European auspices during the 17th and 18th centuries got eclipsed by the spectacular 19th century developments (epitomized by the naming of the highest point on the earth after a surveyor-general), it was solid and extremely significant in its time.

1. International Symposium on
Sino-French Geodesic Survey of the Qing Empire in the 18th Century
Sanya, Hainan Province, China, 14-18 November 2014
Indian geography under European auspices
during 16-18th centuries
Rajesh Kochhar
President IAU Commission 41: History of Astronomy
Hon. Prof., Panjab University, Mathematics Department, Chandigarh
Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Mohali, Punjab
rkochhar2000@yahoo.com

2. The main concern of this Meeting is with
geography and geodesy in China in the 17th
-18th centuries. It will however be instructive
to see what was going on in the neighbouring
landmass that is India. As we shall see, there
are some interesting points of intersection.

3. To begin the story at the beginning, the 15th
century Portuguese initiative under Prince
Henry the ‘Navigator’ to explore the African
western coast turned out to be momentous
indeed. The European arrival in America,
discovery of direct all-sea route to India, and
regular oceanic voyages were all events of
great significance in world history.

4. Huge profits were waiting to be made if ships
could reach their destination and return home
safely. In Europe, the maritime
imperatives weakened the feudal
hold; enhanced the status of
merchants, sailors and mechanics;
promoted boldness of thought and
action; encouraged explorations;
and spurred scientific
discoveries.

5. In their early days in India, the European
traders were confined to the coastal areas and
had no reason to venture into the interior. In
the early 18th century, the French and the
British began intervening in the power
struggles of local kings, princes and chieftains
in South India. Very soon, they developed
territorial ambitions of their own. If sea
powers were to become powerful in distant
lands, they must learn geography and prepare
maps.

6. Modern European studies in Indian geography
were driven by a combination of factors:
commerce, geo-politics, military
requirements, administrative needs and
scientific knowledge. When in the early years
of the 19th century, Britain’s military grip on
India became unassailable, scientific aspects
of the studies came into prominence, but in
the preceding period, which we are interested
in, practical considerations were of paramount
importance.

7. There was a significant corollary of
the 18th century presence of
mathematically-enabled European
astronomers/ geographers in India;
they laid the foundations of the new
academic discipline of history of
ancient Indian astronomy and
mathematics (not discussed here)

8. In the early days, the intellectual calibre of
European traders was generally very low. The
only well-educated Europeans in India at the
time were the Jesuits who had the ability,
scientific training, time and opportunity to
criss-cross the country. They were India’s
first modern geographers.
Thanks to the Jesuits, the French
were more successful on the
scientific front than the colonial.

9. The first modern maps to be made of India
dealt with South India. They were drawn by
the French from data supplied by the Jesuits.
This was in the first half of the 18th century.
In the second half of the 18th century, England
became a territorial power in North India and
geographical exploration became its
prerogative.

10. Jesuits: The secondary tools of the empire
The Society of Jesus was set up in 1542. The
Jesuits arrived in India in 1542 itself and
remained active for more than 200 years. Three
Jesuit missions were established in India (i)
Agra, in 1580; (ii) Madura[i] in South India, in
1606, under Portuguese auspices; (iii) and
Pondicherry, in 1702, by the French. In 1759 the
King of Portugal expelled all Jesuits from his
colonies and in 1773 the Pope banished the
Order altogether.

11. Once the Jesuits became bereft of support from
their original mentors, they placed their services at
the disposal of the British. (The Order was revived
in 1814, with the first English Jesuits arriving in
Calcutta in 1833. By this time, Jesuits were not
required in geography; they now focused on
education.)
Interestingly, Jesuit scientific
activity in India was not the result
of any planning but by chance.

12. Peninsular India
In 1687, the French King Louis XIV sent an
expedition to Siam (Thailand) comprising 14
Jesuits. They arrived in 1688, but were expelled the
same year as result of a revolution that overthrew
the King. The missionaries left for India and
reached Pondicherry on 17 February 1689. It would
seem that only three survived the ordeal. Nothing is
known about one of them, but the other two have
left a mark on history::: Fr Jean-Venance Bouchet
(1653-1732) and Fr Jean Richaud (1633-1690).

14. Bouchet covered the Coromandel coast on foot,
made astronomical observations at Pondicherry,
and prepared maps and sketches. In 1719 he sent to
France his map of Madurai and the neighbouring
kingdoms, extending it slightly to the north of 140.
The map was drawn on a small scale of not quite
an inch to one degree of latitude, with the result
that it was not capable of giving any considerable
detail of the territories covered.

15. Obviously there was some sort of coordination
between the Jesuit data collectors on the one hand
and the French commercial and political interests
on the other. ( It would be interesting to uncover
the original correspondence on this.) The Jesuits
next sent over several manuscript charts, and other
materials from which a new map was prepared by
the famous French cartographer Jean-Baptiste
Bourguignon D’Anville (1697-1782). D’Anville
published his map of the southern peninsula in
1737 and followed it by his famous Carte de l’Inde
in 1752.

16. D’Anville even consulted tables in the 16th century texts
like Ain-e-Akbari, and still older works of Ulugh Beg and
others to get or compare data. An important feature of this
map was that very conscientiously he left blank those parts
of India about which he did not have authentic knowledge.
There was a tacit understanding in Europe that
commercial and military rivalries notwithstanding,
scientific knowledge would be unreservedly shared.
The significance of D’Anville’s efforts can be gauged from
the fact that his Memoir was translated, annotated and
published with a reprint of his map in London in 1754 and
1759.

17. The southern skies
The first telescopic discoveries in the southern
skies were made by the Jesuits. Fr Jean de
Fontaney (1643-1710) observing from the Cape
of Good Hope discovered in 1685 that Alpha
Crucis was in fact double. He, along with other
Jesuits, was in the Cape on way to China. In
1689, Richaud discovered that Alpha Centauri
was in fact a double star. After Bouchet’s
pioneering geographical work in South India,
the scene shifted to North India.

18. British India
There are three important landmarks in the
British conquest of India. Each is connected
with a geographical initiative. In 1757, the
British conquered Bengal. Ten years later, in
1767, a Surveyor General for Bengal was
appointed ( Major James Rennell).
Military conquest of India was accomplished
with ease except for two pockets of resistance.

20. The 1767 appointment of Bengal
Surveyor General is taken as the starting
point by the Survey of India. Thus,
ironically, when India celebrates
the anniversaries of its
scientific institutions, it also
unwittingly commemorates the step-wise
entrenchment of the British
colonial rule in India!

21. The Great Trigonometrical Survey of
India had a decided purely scientific
dimension that went beyond
utilitarianism. But this developed only in
the 19th century, when the British Empire
was fully established.
In the earlier centuries,
however, the British in India
were guided by hard practical
considerations.

22. The British in India had their tasks clearly laid
out from the very beginning. Administration
had to be set up in the acquired territories; new
lands had to be conquered; and land revenue (
and trade profits) enhanced. Military
geography went hand in hand with the
administrative.
(i) Whatever geographical information was
available in pre-existing scientific and political
documents was taken out and utilized.

23. (ii) Local people were hired as messengers to
bring in intelligence on routes, roads, rivers,
bridges, hills, etc.
(iii) Jesuits and ex-Jesuits took modern
measurements and obtained valuable primary
data.
(iv) Whenever an opportunity presented itself,
Company officials made surveys.
(v) Lastly, as soon as it became possible, an
exhaustive systematic field survey was
ordered.

24. There was already a precedent
from Scotland, where after the
1745 suppression of the
Jacobite uprising, a survey
was ordered in 1747 of
confiscated estates which
comprised the greater portions
of the Scottish highlands.

26. Rennell remained in office as Bengal Surveyor
General 1767 till 1777 after which he worked
at the East India House in London, where he
remained influential till the end.
In London , Rennell regularly prepared maps
which were sent out to Bengal in Company
ships. His Bengal Atlas appeared in 1779-
1781. His magnum opus however was the Map
of Hindustan accompanied by a valuable
Memoir.

27. The two first appeared together in 1782, but
subsequently underwent revisions separately
till 1793 incorporating new and improved
data. As Rennell recalled in 1808: ‘at that
day we were compelled to receive
information from others respecting the
interior of the country’.
The first informants for the British
geographers were the Jesuits.

28. Fr Claude Stanislaus Boudier (1686-1757) was
based in Chandernagore near Calcutta. His chance
to traverse north India came about as a result of
astronomical pursuits of Sawai Raja Jai Singh of
Jaipur who wanted the Jesuit to visit him for
scientific consultations. Accordingly, Boudier and
another Jesuit, Pons, set out from Chandernagore
on 6 January 1734. They returned to
Chandernagore about a year later

29. During his journey both ways, Boudier fixed the
longitude and latitude of many important places,
and kept a survey of his route between Agra and
Allahabad. He described places on the road from
Agra to Bengal with the computed distance of each
from the course of the Yamuna and Ganga.
Boudier’s work was extensively used
by D’Anville and Rennell.

30. Fr Joseph Tiffenthaler (1710-1785) survived the
dissolution of the Society of Jesus in 1773 by
working under British auspices. In 1756
Tieffenthaler boldly decided to appeal for financial
help to the ‘famous English nation so well known
for their humanity, liberality and charity to the
poor’. He travelled to Calcutta keeping surveys on
the way. Apparently he found the help he needed
and settled in Oudh for the rest of his life, making
Lucknow his headquarter.

31. Till 1771 he was continuously on the move making
astronomical observations and surveys, employing also
one or more local assistants ‘versed in geography’, whom
he sent to explore the sources of the rivers Ganga and
Gogra.
Tieffenthaler was a tireless explorer. He was very keen
that his work be noticed by the Europeans. It was.
The German astronomer and mathematician ,John
Bernoulli, at the time professor in Berlin, published
Tieffenthaler’s treatise in three volumes in German
(1785-1787) and French (1786-1789).

32. Bernoulli’s publication was incorporated by Rennell
in London into his 1788 map. In India, Thomas
Call (c. 1749-1788), Rennell’s successor as
Surveyor General of Bengal, had already received
copies from Tieffenthaler himself. Call’s Atlas of
India embodies routes taken between Goa and Agra
by Tieffenthaler and a survey of the country
northwest of Delhi by him and Fr Francis Xavier
Wendel (d. 1803).

33. Wendel was a German who came to India in 1751 and
in course of time became a British agent. For four
years 1764-1768, he remained in the service of Raja
Jawahar Singh of Bharatpur gathering intelligence and
passing it on to the British. From a scientific point of
view his most notable contribution is A Memoir on the
Land of the Rajputs and other Provinces to the South
and South West of Agra, along with a map which he
drew in 1779. These were afterwards presented by
Colonel Popham to Rennell , who acknowledged
Wendel’s help in the preparation of his great Map of
Hindustan. Wendel died in 1803. With his
death, the last links with the
erstwhile Agra Mission were snapped.

34. West of Delhi
Ironically, the earliest Jesuit geographical work carried out
in India was the last one to be taken into account. Fr
Anthony Monserrate (1536-1600) left for India in 1574. In
1579, he was chosen to be a member of the first Jesuit
mission to Akbar’s court and was asked by his superiors to
keep a diary. This he did most faithfully, adding greatly to its
value by his geographical and astronomical observations. On
his journey from Surat to Fatehpur Sikri in 1580, he made a
survey and took observations for latitude. When in 1583
Akbar marched to Kabul against his half-brother Mirza
Muhammad Hakim, he took Monserrate along for continuing
the education of his second son Murad (1570-1599).

35. Akbar encouraged Monserrate to take observations en
route which he did as far as Jalalabad. Akbar however
does not seem to have shown any interest in the data
collected by Monserrate who kept it with himself when he
returned from the journey.
On the basis of his observations, Monserrate, in about
1590, prepared a small map, 51/2 in. x 41/8 in. in size. This
little map was a tremendous improvement on all previous
efforts. It was based on actual observations rather than on
travellers’ tales. It gave a better idea of the Himalayas and
upper course of Punjab rivers than Rennell would do two
centuries later. Expectedly, Monserrate did not have any
knowledge about regions east of Yamuna. Keeping in
mind the times when it was first prepared, its value cannot
be over-estimated.

36. It however had no contemporary significance. Ironically,
Monserrate’s work carried out when the Agra Mission was
just established came to light only when the Mission was
closed.
In the opening years of the 19th century, Monserrate’s
manuscript was dusted out of the archival shelves and
incorporated into the corpus of geographical knowledge.
The timing was not fortuitous. The British struggle for
territorial control over north India was almost over, and the
British were finally in Delhi. The territory west of Delhi
was now of strategic importance. Monserrate was able to do
his field work when Akbar marched to the north-west to
secure his fledgling empire. The British needed Monserrate
for the same reason. Monserrate’s geographical work thus
neatly brackets Mughal Empire’s history.

37. Monserrate’s manuscript went into the valuable Map of the
Countries West of Delhi as far as Cabul and Multan, which
Francis Wilford brought out in 1804. This was a
tremendous improvement on anything that had been
produced before. It stretched as far as Sukkur and
Dera Ghazi Khan on the south-west; Kabul on the
west; and to Chitral and Gilgit in the north. For
additional information, Wilford employed ‘A properly
instructed native’, Mirza Mogul Beg, who carried out
extended field work between 1786 and 1796.
There were many other natives who similarly helped the
British geographers.

38. Transits of Venus 1761 and 1769
The twin events of the transits of the planet Venus across
the disc of the sun that were predicted to take place in
1761 and 1769 caused great excitement worldwide. Teams
were sent out to far off places to observe the event. The
excitement gave a great fillip to making of scientific
instruments in Europe. Although the ostensible purpose of
the scientific expeditions was to collect data that would
enable astronomers to calculate the actual distance to the
sun and therefore to scale the solar system, the transits
became part of the ongoing geo-political rivalry between
France and England.

39. The Madras government had earlier presented a
telescope to the Nawab of Arcot. It was now borrowed
back for the occasion. Astronomical
expeditions and instruments were seen as
symbols of a superior, science-driven
culture. The latter were presented as
official gifts to native rulers as show-off
even when the latter had no use for
them.
French or British Indian observations of the transits
did not make any worthwhile contribution to the
scientific literature on the subject, but the events
succeeding in creating a greater awareness of
astronomical culture among the administrators.

40. The era of trained colonial officers
In the last quarter of the 18th century, British India
obtained services of scientifically trained officers.
Colonel Thomas Dean Pearse (1741/2-1789) came to
Calcutta in 1776 as an artillery officer. He set up a
private observatory at his residence, and regularly made
observations of longitude and latitude. He also recorded
meteorological data. While on military tour, he
estimated distance between Madras and Calcutta and
fixed geographical positions of intermediate stations.
Additionally, and more importantly, he trained next
generation of officers. His young assistant, Robert
Colebrooke, later became Surveyor General of Bengal
(1794-1808).
.

41. Reuben Burrow (1747-1792) was a brilliant English
mathematician who arrived in Calcutta in 1783.
In Calcutta, Burrow was hired at six times his British
salary to teach mathematics and astronomy to young
engineer officers. The geographical points he fixed from
Hardwar to Assam were used by surveyors for the next
30 years.
He compared the values of latitudes and
longitudes given in the famous 16th century work
Ain-e-Akbari with the modern ones. He also
prepared astronomical notes for an English
edition of the work.

42. While on official surveying tours, Burrow
started looking for knowledgeable people
and old books on astronomy and
mathematics. His collection of Sanskrit
and Persian manuscripts became available
to European scholars in 1800. He owes
his place in history to his scholarship on
ancient India rather than colonial field
survey.

43. In passing, we may note that Pearse
came from a respectable but
impoverished family. For him, colonial
service was a means of regaining lost
family status. In contrast, Burrow was
considered low-bred in England. For him
colonial service was a means of
obtaining social respectability.

44. Triangulation
In 1783, Cassini III, the director of Paris Observatory,
wrote a memoir suggesting that the difference in the
longitude and latitude of Greenwich and Paris
observatories be precisely ascertained through
triangulation. The suggestion was well timed. The
American war of independence had just ended and a bit
of geodesy would be seen as a great conciliator between
traditional rivals, France and England. The memoir was
presented by the French ambassador to the English King
who readily agreed and asked the Royal Society to
implement it with funding especially provided. Its
president, Joseph Banks entrusted the task to William
Roy (already mentioned), who measured the baseline in
1784, while actual triangulation was begun in 1787.

45. British Ordnance Survey was set up in 1791. In 1787,
before starting the triangulation, Roy suggested that
measurements be made in peninsular India for determining
the length of a degree at lower latitudes.
In April 1790, following explicit orders from London,
British India reluctantly asked Burrow to begin work on
measuring the degree of longitude near the tropic of
Cancer. The work was however interrupted by Burrow’s
death and not resumed. Burrow’s results were finally
published by his friend in 1796. British India’s
first half-hearted foray into geodesy was a
non-success.

46. Madras Observatory (1787)
As the sea traffic between England and India increased, the
drawbacks of the Indian east coast became abundantly clear.
The Bay of Bengal is affected by the monsoons for seven
months in the year. Company ships that took barely six days
between Calcutta and Madras in the winter months
December-April, could require 4-6 weeks at other times. The
coast itself is rocky and full of shoals. Madras was not a
natural harbour like Bombay was , and did not provide safe
landing to Indiamen which were often wrecked.

47. A survey of the coast was thus literally a matter of
life and death. Eventually in 1785 a trained
surveyor-astronomer Michael Topping (1747-1796)
was sent out from England, passage paid and
equipped with surveying instruments.
Topping used a private astronomical observatory
set up for him in Madras in 1787.( It was
established by a senior officer William Petrie.) It
was taken over by the Government in 1790. The
observatory became the reference meridian for the
trigonometrical survey proposed by William
Lambton

48. Two points about the beginning of the survey are
noteworthy.
(ii) London-based Major Rennell, old-fashioned but still
influential, whom the Court of Directors consulted on the
subject, opposed the proposed survey. As it turned out, the
Astronomer Royal Dr Nevil Maskelyne was a very close
relative of the Madras Governor Lord Edward Clive
(1754-1839). Maskelyne was Clive’s mother’s brother.)
On Maskelyne’s intervention, Rennell changed his mind
and extended full support. Thus, an important scientific
decision came to be based on family considerations.

49. (ii) Indian Trigonometrical Survey had an indirect China
connection. The requisite instruments reached India from
England via China. Many instruments similar to the one
made for Roy’s ordnance survey were purchased by the
Company for presentation to the Chinese Emperor. On the
failure of the embassy, they ended as the personal property
of Dr Dinwiddie from whom they were officially purchased
for Lambton’s use.
The Great Trigonometrical Survey of India is the most
spectacular example of colonial science, underlined by the
naming of the highest point on the earth after Lambton’s
successor, George Everest.

50. I have tried to draw
attention to the geographic
and geodesic work done in
India under European auspices
during the 17th and 18th
centuries. Even though it got
eclipsed by the spectacular
19th century developments, it
was solid and extremely
significant in its time.

51. Thank you